Frances' father was Henry Haberkorn, a vice president and trust officer of the largest bank in Detroit. Pap was chairman of the board of one of the smallest banks in Indiana. He made the following observations regarding this "similarity."
(Undated)
My dear Frank, I wrote one letter to Francisco, and one jointly to her father and mother. This week I received replies. Frances wrote a nice, sensible, fine letter. Your pappy Haberkorn did the honors for himself and wife. The letterhead disclosed he is one of the Vice Presidents of the National Bank of Detroit. He facetiously referred to the fact we had another thing in common—we both were connected with the banking business.
Which reminded me of Charlie Buchanan, who appeared before the Railroad Committee of the House in 1917 with a bill to allow the Louisville, New Albany & Corydon Railroad to charge more than 2 cents per mile on passenger trains on his Road. Charlie was President of said R.R. and it was a separate railroad corporation in truth and in fact. He was also Auditor, Treasurer, Gen. Freight and Passenger Agent—and Conductor on their one and only train. His Road ran from Corydon and connected with the Southern at Corydon Junction some 8 miles of main track. He told us the following tale:
As do all R.R. Presidents, he went to their convention in Chicago, and there struck up Pres. Williams of the New York Central for an exchange of courtesies of passes—he to give Williams a pass on the L.N.A. & C. Railroad, and in return, Williams to give him a pass on the N.Y.C. Williams seemed to have not heard of Charlie's Road and asked him where it was. Charlie told him. Williams still was puzzled and asked how long the Road was. Charlie answered it was a little over 8 miles long.
Williams said, "Don't you think you have a hell of a lot of gall when you have an 8-mile Road and we have over 16,000 miles?"
Charlie answered, "I know that Mr. Williams, but yours ain't a damn bit wider."
He got the pass.
And also our Committee recommended his bill unanimously. . .
And so, as between the L.N.A. & C. and the N.Y.C., and the
National Bank of Detroit and Russellville Bank, I can't just put
my finger on it, but hazily, there is some similarity, of some
kind or other.
As ever,