Chicago Public Radio
Now Playing

12:00am BBC World Service
4:00am Smart City
  View Schedule


Robert Feder
Pledge Now

There are many ways to support public radio.
Submit
Pledge Now
Events
11.21.2009 7th Annual DIY Trunkshow
11.22.2009 The Warrior Poetry Project: A Concert Reading of Poems by Veterans
View full calendar
revolution in access
Feder Blog
Submit
  • facebook
  • twitter
  • unknown
Eight Forty-Eight Monday through Thursday at 9am and 8pm; Friday at 9am
Eight Forty-Eight 3/12/2009
Not All Bankers Are Bad




 
 
Bookmark and Share Share
 

Litke remembers volunteering with bankers at the Newberry Library.
Bank executives aren’t the most popular kids on the block these days. Writer Ron Litke remembers some bankers that were actually pretty good people.

After the bad news about the golf tournament Northern Trust now says it will repay a $1.6 billion deposit from the federal government’s Troubled Asset Relief Plan “as quickly as prudently possible under the new guidelines.”

Maybe Barney Frank should stop the check, or hire a collection firm – or slap a Denver boot on the bank’s front door.

Many financial leaders of today seem cold to the urgent realities. But it wasn’t that long ago that some of the most prominent bankers and businessmen in Chicago were highly attuned people, sort of like many of us but with a LOT more money -- though you would never have known it from their modest and gentlemanly ways.

In the late 1970s, I worked alongside several of these quietly powerful folks as a clerk at the Newberry Library. They would arrive – usually by bus -- for volunteer work several days a week, and more after they retired. I knew of only one who had a driver – with a Buick LeSabre -- but he preferred the bus, or he walked from his Gold Coast co-op in a pressed suit and a four-in-hand tie knot.

The Newberry is a closed stack library -- meaning the books must first be requested and then brought to you by a page – and it’s doubtful that anyone, including some staff, knew that their books were sometimes being delivered by a man who commanded one of the largest banks in the nation.

The late Chalkley Hambleton – a banker’s name if ever there was – took his degree from Princeton University into the mailroom of Harris Trust and Savings Bank. He would become its president and, after retiring as vice chairman, showed up at the Newberry not only as chairman of our board but also to study and work with the scholars and staff in the Library’s Center for the History of the American Indian. He did bibliography and other research, and every so often I saw him pushing a rickety cart with books for the reading room. It didn’t dent his dignity and he said it was a way for him to get some exercise. I don’t think he played golf.

The late David Dangler volunteered at the Newberry during and after four decades in the Northern Trust‘s Personal Trust division. He sometimes left the bank early to work at the Library, most of the time in the book conservation lab, wearing a white coat and looking like a dapper pharmacist.

Or he was elsewhere doing different things. I remember him helping to uncrate newly acquired books; this was sort of a special event he scheduled with other volunteer chieftains from companies such as Rand McNally who, like Mr. Dangler, just liked being around books.

And not the books that have to be checked according to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, created after the Enron catastrophe, that mandates public companies to provide financial information based in reality.

Mr. Hambleton and Mr. Dangler were exceptional people who just happened to be powerful bankers and had deep respect for the humanities they studied at the Newberry. It seems their successors are simply less human.

Music Button: Shirley Johnson, "You Shouldn't Have Been There", from the CD Blues Attack, (Delmark records)
Leave a comment
Support Provided By


Become a Sponsor
Support Provided By


Become a Sponsor
Local News
Killing in Puerto Rico Hits Chicagoans Hard

Despite Rebuke, Burris 'Pleased' Senate Inquiry Over

Illinois Looking to Catch Up on Medicaid Payments

School Gives Special Ed Kids A Different Test, and Scores Soar

Oprah Counts Down to the End

Asian Carp Breach Barrier

Latest Unemployment Numbers Bad for Chicago Area, But There May Be Reason for Hope



National News
Initial Senate vote looms on health legislation

Levin: May be more troubling emails from Hasan

Report: Italy arrests 2 for Mumbai attacks

US to drop shooting case against Blackwater guard

GOP: Health test recommendations could affect care

Police: NC girl raped, killed on day she was taken

Researcher: Faint writing seen on Shroud of Turin



International News
Report: Italy arrests 2 for Mumbai attacks

Sri Lanka to release 136,000 war-displaced Tamils

Blast near aid office wounds 1 in NW Pakistan

6 world powers press Iran on nuclear issue

China says 37 dead, 71 trapped in mine explosion

Buddhists from 2 Koreas to hold joint ceremony

Bangladeshi mom want twins to stay in Australia

Chavez praises Carlos the Jackal

Afghan police are weak link in security force

Researcher: Faint writing seen on Shroud of Turin