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58    CURRENT BIOGRAPHY

LIVINGSTON, HOMER J. Aug. 30, 1903 -
Banker; organization official
Address: b. First National Bank of Chicago,
38 S. Dearborn St., Chicago, Ill.: h. 619 Keystone Ave., River Forest, Ill.

"America's banks play a significant role in every segment of the nation's life," declared Homer J. Livingston, president of the First National Bank of Chicago. "Banks safeguard the deposits of over 68,000,000 savers. They extend loans to the smallest crossroads grocery store and the greatest metropolitan industrial plant... Looking ahead, it is clear that banker shall have, in the next five to ten years, vastly enlarged demands for credit... to help raise even higher America's standard of living. The increase in population indicates that the American economy has great potentials for growth in the years ahead."

Livingston has advanced rapidly to the forefront of the financial world. He became one of the youngest men ever to head a major banking institution in the United States when he was made president of the First National Bank of Chicago at the age of forty-six. Further honor was besowed upon him in October 1954 when he was elected president of the American Bankers Association for a one-year term.

Homer J. Livingston was born on the west side of Chicago on August 30, 1903, the son of John C. and Evelyn (Lewis) Livingston. He received his early scholastic training in the public schools of Chicago, where he attended the Grant Grammar School and the Crane High School. He was given religious instruction at Chicago's Church of the Epiphany. Since his family was not wealthy, young Livingston held several jobs during summer vacations. One of these positions was as a delivery boy in a firm for which he had to drive a horse and wagon' while at another he made parts for doorstops

[[image: photo of a man in suit and tie]]
[[caption: HOMER J. LIVINGSTON]]
[[photo credit: Maurice Seymour]]

in a Chicago machine shop and was paid $10 a week for a ten-hour day, six days a week. Entering Crane High School in 1917, Livingston followed a general academic program and played on the school basketball team, as well as on the Y.M.C.A. team.

Livingston's career in many ways exemplifies the American Horatio Alger story of the self-made man. After his graduation from high school in 1920, he took a job in the finance department of the post office so that he could attend the John Marshall Law School at night. During this period Livingston was keenly interested in politics and at one time served as precinct captain in Chicago's 18th Ward for the Republican party.

Perhaps the most decisive event in Livingston's career took place while he was still in law school. It was the custom of the First National Bank of Chicago to hire each year one of the top members of the John Marshall senior class to work in its legal department. Livingston had made such a favorable impression upon the dean of the law school that when the bank called in 1922 asking for the leading senior, the dean replied that the best man was in the second year. Livingston was interviewed by Edward Eagle Brown, then in the bank's law department and now chairman of the board at First National, who hired him on a temporary basis.

Years of hard work and intense study followed in which Livingston not only worked toward completing his law degree at John Marshall, but gained a knowledge of banking and finance as well. He received an L.L.B. degree from John Marshall Law School in 1924 and was admitted to practice at the Illinois bar in the following year. At the bank he advanced from his legal clerk's position to become an assistant attorney in 1930 and an attorney in 1934. He was elected counsel in 1944 and was given a vice-presidency in the following year. The First National appointed him a director of its board in 1948, and two years later, he was elected president of the bank.

During the years in which he has been associated with he American Banking Association, Livingston has held various positions. He has been a member of the committed on Federal legislation and was chairman of the subcommittee on bankruptcy from 1940 to 1950. He became a member of the credit policy commission in 1949. He served on the legislative committee and council of administration of the Illinois Bankers Association in 1944-1945. He was elected vice- president of the A.B.A. in 1953 and president in October 1954, succeeding Everett D. Reese (see C.B., March '54), at the 80th annual convention held in Atlantic City.

As president of the A.B.A., Livingston has traveled to every part of the nation to address various state banking organizations and many other financial group. In these speeches he has pointed out the role played by credit and bankers in the conquest of the American frontier and the later development of the country into a vast industrial empire. From a total of $325,000,000 in loans held by banks in 1834, the amount of credit has expanded to over eighty billion dollars