I AM GRATIFIED to learn of so fine an instance of cooperation on the part of the community and the Reconstruction Finance Corporation as the opening of the banks of your city and the restoration of their fundamental service to the whole people. I have no doubt that benefits will show at once in business, in employment, in agriculture, and in the prosperity of the people of the town generally. Your enterprise and courage is an admirable instance of restoring confidence.
HERBERT HOOVER
[L. O. Broussard, Chairman of the Board, Bank of Abbeville & Trust Company, Abbeville, Louisiana]
Note: The message was in response to a telegram from Mr. Broussard, dated March 15, 1932, which follows: The President:
Tomorrow March sixteenth the Bank of Abbeville and Trust Company will open its doors after having acquired the business and assumed all of the deposits of the Bank of Abbeville and the Bank of Maurice both of which institutions were forced to close their doors about six weeks ago due to uneasiness of depositors resulting from failures in other banks in this territory. This speedy reopening has been made possible primarily through the splendid cooperation and prompt action of the directors of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation in Washington and the generous assistance of our bank commissioner. Their support had in turn inspired new confidence in our people at home and made possible the starting of the new institution. The only other bank in Abbeville is the First National Bank which closed the same day as ours also reopens tomorrow. Thus after having been without any banking facilities whatever for some weeks our community will have both banks restored and doing business again. We naturally feel grateful for this cooperation which means much to our farmers and business people and we just wanted you to know of this concrete proof of the beneficial effect of the work being done by the R.F.C.
L. O. BROUSSARD,
Chairman of the Board,
Bank of Abbeville & Trust Co.
Herbert Hoover, Message to the Bank of Abbeville and Trust Company, Abbeville, Louisiana. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/208546