LET THEM EAT CAKE

My first encounter with Bank of America was as a grammar school saver at the Van Nuys branch of the Bank of Italy, whose local vice president personally opened my account, presenting me with a tin-and-cardboard coin bank in which to hoard my change until it could be added to my account. The personal approach was the cardinal rule, stemming from A. P. Giannini’s very first days as a banker, and exemplified in his having literally saved the lives of thousands in the aftermath of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake by loaning money with only a written IOU as collateral.

In 1941, having just graduated from Carnegie Tech in Pittsburgh, and preparing to come home to California, I took the Bank of America cashier’s check my father had sent me for train fare to the Mellon Bank to cash. I had only the week before closed out my account with Mellon, and, simultaneously, newspapers had carried the account of B of A’s having become the largest bank in the country.

Nevertheless, the Mellon Bank manager with whom I’d dealt over three years no longer knew me and had never heard of the Bank of America and, since I no longer had an account with Mellon, refused to cash the check.

I’d be willing to bet that nowadays the Bank of America would be far more likely to deal with customers in much the same vein as the Mellon Bank, than Mr. Giannini’s Bank of Italy did with me.

KAY E. KUTER

North Hollywood