Crissinger

In Caledonia, Ohio, he used to belong to the "Chain Gang." This small village, close to Marion, Ohio, held also a band of boys calling themselves the "Stunners." The two gangs fought continually and thus became lifelong friends. Dan Crissinger of the "Chain Gang" was obliged " to milk cows before school, feed cows and chop wood after school. And one day Dan Crissinger literally "monkeyed with the buzzsaw" in his father's lumber mill. His hand was crippled so badly for farm work that his father saw the wisest thing would be to train the boy's mind. Therefore Dan Crissinger of the "Chain Gang" went away to Buchtel College (now the University of Akron) and to the University of Cincinnati. By the time he got back to Marion, Ohio, to build a home and practice law, "Chain Gangers" and "Stunners" were grown men.

One of the "Stunners," too, had become a young lawyer--tall Warren Gamaliel Harding whose fine looks and big voice made as good an impression on men in billiard parlors as they did on girls at parties or buggy riding. While Daniel Richard Crissinger was building up a big practice, including the counselorship of the Marion Steam Shovel Co.,* and becoming president of the National City Bank & Trust Co. of Marion, Warren Harding was moving right on up in politics. He became a U. S. Senator and then, one summer, sat on his front porch and waited for his friends to make him President of the United States.

Daniel Richard Crissinger had always been a Democrat, but now that a Republican "Stunner" was playing the biggest game of all, the least a "Chain Ganger" could do was change his politics for the time being. When "Stunner" Harding was elected President, he returned the guerdon of friendship, taking "Chain Ganger" Crissinger down to Washington to be Comptroller of the Currency.

People muttered obvious things about a "smalltown banker" being placed in charge of all national banks in the U. S., but Mr. Crissinger's ability soon silenced such mutterings. And none could gainsay the appropriateness of his further elevation, in 1923, to the gov- ernorship of the Federal Reserve System.

Last week, Mr. Crissinger resigned as governor of the Federal Reserve Board. One of the few Harding appointees reappointed by President Coolidge, he was the last important member of the so-called "Ohio Gang"/- and the last member, important, or unimportant, of the "Chain Gang" or the "Stunners" left in Washington. He explained to President Coolidge and Secretary Mellon that his resignation was in no way influenced by the controversy which the Federal Reserve Board had lately with its Chicago member bank, when Mr. Crissinger was charged with domineering because he cast a deciding vote to make the Chicago bank lower its rediscount rate against its will (TIME, Sept. 19, BUSINESS). Mr. Crissinger explained that his wife's poor health and his own opportunity to increase his income as an executive of a District of Columbia investment banking house (the F. H. Smith Co.**) made his act personally imperative.

*It has been said that "Marion built the Panama Canal" because these steam shovels were used extensively in its construction.

/-The so-called Ohio Gang originated with Ohio's "Big Four" politicians: Mark Hamia, J. B. Foraker, George B. Cox, Charles Dick. Later additions were Harry M. Daugherty, Guy D. Goff, Warren G. Harding, Howard Mannington, Charles R. Forbes, Jesse Smith, E. Mont Reily, Daniel Richard Crissinger, George Busby Christian Jr.

**This company also announced last week the election to its board of directors of Representative Frederick N. Zihlman, potent Maryland Republican, and President Ezra Gould of the Washington Mechanics Savings Bank.