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SEPTEMBER 1955      59

dollars today. As Livingston stated in an address before the Seventh National Credit Conference on December 16, 1954, "Step by step with the growth of the country, bank credit has expanded to discharge its vital role in our economy."

He believes that bankers will have an important function in the future development of the American economy. Livingston envisages a period of population growth of nearly 2,500,000 persons a year, and believes that this growth will be reflected in a large increase in bank credit for homes, schools, hospitals, churches, and public utilities. "Another highly important factor which assures our progress in the years ahead," he said, "is the desire of Americans to change and to improve their economic well-being."

Citing many statistics to indicate this growth, Livingston stated, as an example, that during the next six years, it will be necessary to complete one new school classroom every ten minutes, every day and every night. "It is estimated," he said, "that during the next ten years, the consumption of electricity will increase 100 per cent.... Home installations, such as refrigerators, washing machines, air-conditioners, and many appliances still on the drawing boards, will average an estimated $5,000 per home, compared to the $1,300 average household investment today."

Besides alerting bankers to the key role that will be played by loans in future expansion of the American economy, Livingston, as president of the A.B.A., is engaged in the task of discovering new and better ways of carrying on banking and in transmitting his findings to the country's fiscal institutions. To that end, he has initiated a study of banking policies and practices based on the opinions of the various national and state supervisory and regulatory banking bodies. Although still not complete, the preliminary findings have already proved valuable in pointing up some of the weak and strong phases of current banking procedures.

In his address delivered at commencement exercises of Washington and Jefferson College, Washington, Pennsylvania on June 7, 1952, Livingston stated that America's material wealth is great, and her economic progress has been unequaled in history. "Of the automobiles in the world, 40,000,000, or 76 per cent, are in this country. Four out of five families now own life insurance. Over 40,000,000 homes have radios and nearly 20,000,000 have television. We have more home owners than any other nation. About 15,000,000 Americans own shares of stock. . . But America has also made significant gains in her cultural and religious life: There are [7,500][public] libraries, with over 110,000,000 volumes. Today more than 50 per cent of all young people finish high school compared with only 6 per cent fifty years ago, and 10 per cent finish college compared to only 2 per cent in 1900. . . Today we have the largest church membership in relation to population in the history of the nation. Science, industry, research are the great doors to the new frontiers of national expansion." (Vital Speeches, September 1, 1952).

Homer Livingston holds many important posts in the business world. He is chairman of the executive committee and chairman of the stock trustees of the Chicago, Indianapolis & Louisville Railroad; a director of the Continental Casualty Company and the Continental Assurance Company; president of the National Safe Deposit Company; and a director of Sears, Roebuck and Company.

Long active in Chicago civic affairs, Livingston is a trustee of the University of Chicago and a treasurer and trustee of the Art Institute of Chicago. He is also a director and treasurer of the Chicago Boys Club; commissioner of the Chicago Medical Center; and trustee of the Chicago Child Care Society and of the Farm Foundation.

Livingston belongs to the Oak Park Country Club in River Forest, a suburb of Chicago. Other clubs in which he holds membership are the Commercial Club, the Chicago Club, the Union League, the Mid-Day Club, the Law Club, the Legal Club, and the Chicago Golf Club. In 1952 he was awarded an honorary LL.D. degree from Washington and Jefferson College in Washington, Pennsylvania.

The banker married Helen Henderson, an employe of the First National Bank of Chicago, on September 29, 1928. Their son, Homer J. Livingston, Jr., is now a student at Princeton University. Livingston is over six feet two inches tall, and has dark hair and a ruddy complexion. Golf and fishing are his principal forms of recreation. With his family he spends his vacations in one of the northern states or in Canada fishing for wall-eyed pike and lake trout.

Reference
Who's Who in America, 1954-55

MITCHELL, JAMES P(AUL) Nov. 12, 1900- United States Secretary of Labor
Address: b. c/o United States Department of Labor, Washington, D.C.; h. Upland Terrace, N.W., Washington, D.C.; 214 S. Blvd., Spring Lake, N.J.

NOTE: The article on Secretary Mitchell which appeared in Current Biography in 1954 contained a misleading factual error. It is superseded by the present corrected biography.

Described as a personnel executive who "feels that trade unions are here to stay and that business should . . . view them as a challenge" (Christian Science Monitor, October 9, 1953), James P. Mitchell was sworn in as United States Secretary of Labor on October 9, 1953, succeeding Martin P. Durkin who resigned on the previous September 10. For four months prior to his appointment to the Cabinet post Mitchell was Assistant Secretary of the Army in charge of manpower and reserve forces affairs.

The Secretary has had more than twenty years' experience in personnel administration and in management-employee relations, both in