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July 8, 1955 Internal Memorandum \j Papers of Frank A. Vanderlip The papers of Brank A. Vanderlip are in a storeroom in the seme building as the family garage at Scarborough, New York. They are piled on -wooden shelving built against the wall of the storeroom, these shelves veiy vide apart, and the papers are piled in a heterogeneous fashion which makes it difficult to measure them. Finally, a method was arrived at by which we measured the square footage of the face of the shelves. Assuming that the ordinary library shelf is spaced 12 inches away from its neighbor, this would give approximately 132 linear feet for the size of the collection. This figure must be taken as very rough. There are other papers in the possession of M r s . Dudley Schoals, daughter of M r . Vanderlip, who lives on the A ^ • Scarborough estate, and it is probably that there are papers in the library of his wife who still occupies the big house on the estate. In addition, there were two shelves on which papers were piled in boxes of the sige of big dress boxes. However, the 132 linear foot estimate is at the worst one that can be worked with. , The papers are mary of them very dirty. They seem to be in folders which were brought from the bank T?hen Mr. Vanderlip died or perhaps brought when he retired as president of the .National City Bank in 1919. He had many and varied interests, so that this material by no means is all devoted to banking. His daughter took out five folders which she had worked ^dth at one time and which seemed to concern either the banking reform or the Federal Reserve System. These I went through in her library. The collection as a whole would comprise first, a complete set of the many pamphlets which Mr. Vanderlip issued, second, a complete set of his periodical articles, third, a set of volumes of newspaper clippings on matters which interested him. (I saw 12 volumes of these, of which 3 were specifically devoted to banking -2- reform, They seemed to start in 1909 and to run to 1937, but this is not necesserily a complete count.) Fourth are the manilla folders of correspondence, memoranda, and so forth, all of which have titles and numbers, and fifth, Mr* Vanderlip1s banking library. This latter material I did not see, and the questions must still be asked as to how considerable it is and whether or not it could go with the collection if desired. The estimate of 132 linear feet does not include the books nor does it include a complete set of pamphlets and articles. It includes what I saw, which was the set of a dozen books of newspaper clippings and the great collection of papers in manilla folders. A description of the folders which I went through is interesting solely because it indicates how rich this collection is. One folder contained material showing how the National City bank and the newly formed Currency Association met the problems posed by World War I. Another folder showed the early effort of the National City agent in Washington to get a full set of circulars of the new Federal Reserve System for Mr# Vanderlip. Another folder contained correspondence with Paul Warburg of a very interested and rather personal nature. One letter dated December 26, 1918 from Mr. Vanderlip to Mr. Warburg contained the following sentence, "I wish I could sit down with you and half a dozen others in the sort of conference that created the Federal Reserve Act.11 Tnis may have referred to the Jekyll Islend Conference which Mr. Vanderlip attended, or it may have had reference to something else as yet unnoted. Another folder contained the National City Bank's private memoranda gathered from various officials as to whether or not to join the new Federal Reserve System. Another contained the statement of Mr. Vanderlip to the Federal Reserve Organizing Committee. There was also a copy of the confidential hearings on the nomination of John Skelton Williams, which hearings vere held January 19, 1914* Another folder contained material on the work of the Clearing House Committee in regard to the Owen^-Glass bill and a copy of trie report of the Clesring House Committee dated October 14, 1913* us These folders were chosen at random by Mrs. Schoals because she noted A that their titles seemed to indicate that they had to do vith.the Federal Reserve System. As Mr* Vanderlip vas a man interested all his life in currency reform, it is probably that the sections as yet unseen contain other valuable material* There is also in existence a black bound volume of typewritten copies of letters-from Mr* Jamas Stillman, president of the National City Bank until 1909* and then chairman of its board, to Mr. Vanderlip. Hr. Stillman was one of the famous New York bankers of his period. He has the reputation with Mr. Vanderlip1 s daughter of having been a veiy suspicious and secretive man* Testimony to this may be found in the letters themselves which are written partly in code. Mr* Stillman apparently did not believe in mentioning the name of any person in his letters in such fashion that it could be read by an outsider. He insisted that Mr. Vanderlip also write him in code, and Mrs. Schoals records the annoyance of her father, who, when writing a letter to Mr. Stillman, had to do it in such a fashion that his secretary could substitute for real names the code names supplied by Mr. Stillman* Not included in this material which I saw and measured is a collection of papers which have to do with the Harding regime and which Mrs. Schoals herself is going through at the present time. Mrs. Schoals was veiy much interested in the proposal that her father1 s papers should go to Columbia University. She said that they were not hers 'to dispose of, but that she knew that her mother would also be interested, although sfte could make no commitment. After seeing the storeroom and going through the folders she had taken out, I therefore asked to see Mrs. Vanderlip and found her in the big main house. She is a woman of 75 years of age, but extremely active and alert, She said that at one tir^e they had offered the papers to the Libr* ry of the University of Chicago, but for sane re&aon that institution hr-ri not felt itself equipped to htncJle papers of "this kind* She vas interested in r.y description of the proposed bankers1 collection to be established at Columbia University but seemed a little uncertain as to vhether tney vould be in good company* She vnr> reessured by a statement that the A* Barton Hepburn papers were there, Mrs* Vanderlip, like her daughter, rcade no final commitment• but asked that I let them know how the Columbia project goes slang. I think it very probably that m£> they vill be trilling to turn Mr* Vanderlip1 a papers over to the collection, and if eny further convincing verc necessary, I cm sure it could be done* Both women ere intelligent and subject to argument of this kind. Mrs* Scho&les said that she herself had tried to do some rearranging of the papers and had. anticipated doing more, but I argued that this vas a professional job which should be left to a professionrl, and she seened eager to agree with that point of view* I suggested two possible courses of action, a$> that &n expert from Columbia come up to Scarborough and arrange the papers in boxes for shipping to the library, or b) that they be simply put into boxes as they are and sent down to the iibrc.ry* Mrs* Schoelp showed e slight preference for the first coarse of action, but I think if the second course vere determined on, tnere would be no particular argument* The reason for the first course would be the discovery of other papers in other p?rts of the Vanderlip property beside the storeroom itself* It should be remembered in considering the Vanderiip papers that Mr* Vanderlip started his career as a newspaper man in Chicago in the nineties• He vas financial editor of the Chicago Tribune end obviously hed a sense of public education* He vrote a book called, "Tomruorrov15 Money,11 emong others, and the story of his life is contained in a volume by Boyden Sparks called flFron Farmboy to Financier•" He to have written periodical articles ell his life end in addition turned out a greet p^m.rhlets. His dru^hter aaid t n s t he gave a course on tfoiiey r:t L>c* rborough School, a di^/ school conducted in c builc'in^' on t i e e s t a t e . t h i s vere token but hnve unfortunately cis^pper-red, Stenoj-rc;:hic note?* of Tnin b i t of hiatory wnkes hiin sound like one of trie more e r t i c u l n t e of the woneirry reformers of his period, end ho nty for that ret son be more th*:n usually interesting, so far as pr.pers r. concerned*
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