Otto T. Bannard

When Otto Tremont Bannard had drawn up his chair to the Century lunch-table, with a grave nod of recognition right and left and across the table, a flavor of dry humor presently pervaded the conversation. It was not less pungent because of the slow and deliberate speech in which Bannard made his comments. A casual remark would give to the viewpoint one of those unexpected turns that the author of Poor Richard used to impart in private talk. On the occasion when our Treasurer [Henry deForest Baldwin], lapsing into classic idiom in his appeal for the Endowment Fund, declared to the Club meeting that “bis dat qui cito dat,” it was Bannard who observed ruminatively to his right-hand neighbor, “I have always found it so.” Having been nominated as Republican forlorn-hope for the New York mayoralty campaign in 1909, Bannard began by asking indulgence for a candidate who had to divide attention with Dr. Cook and the North Pole controversy. After two weeks on the platform, he took his audience sufficiently into his confidence to admit that “campaigning is new to me, but I am getting to like it.”

Urged to say something to a Brooklyn ratification meeting that would appeal to borough pride, he assured the expectant over-the-river voters that, although not a Brooklyn man himself, he had been a Brooklyn baby and was therefore “indebted to your healthful climate for pulling me through my first three years.” One can picture Bannard’s profoundly serious face while throwing to a happy audience these political bouquets. Long before election day, when Hearst had annexed to his own independent ticket all the other Republican candidates, Bannard described himself in private conversation as ‘‘the lost child of the campaign.” Not many candidates for office would have found a gleam of humor in such collapse of political possibilities. Defeated in the election, as he knew he would be, Bannard’s farewell remark in the newspapers was expression of “regret that I did not gratify my friends by getting more votes.”

Back of this whimsical exterior was a character of persistent energy, great practical wisdom and wide experience in affairs. As the head of an important trust company, he was recognized by Wall Street as much for progressive achievement as for sound conservatism. The President of Yale University [James Rowland Angell], when conferring on Bannard its doctor-of-laws degree, described him as the “staunch upholder of a thousand good causes during a long and active life.” No member of its board gave more unreservedly of time and money to the Charity Organization Society; of which, indeed, Bannard was a founder, forty-seven years ago. In all these varied and useful avocations there was not the slightest effort at public notoriety. In them, as in his brief political campaign, the picture was always that of a quiet and unobtrusive personality, surrounded with an atmosphere of unexpected humor. During the sudden increase of unemployment after the crash of 1920, the Charity Organization Society found its relief funds practically exhausted; nothing appeared to be at hand except a forty-thousand-dollar investment, reserved for administrative purposes. The board of managers met in great perplexity. Bannard asked, reflectively, whether the investment fund could not be diverted to charitable uses; the presiding officer replied, “Of course not; the law does not permit it.” “Suppose we used it, notwithstanding,” Bannard suggested; “Would the members of this board become personally responsible for the amount diverted?” “You know we would, Mr. Bannard,” the president answered, impatiently. “I move, then, Mr. President,” Bannard proceeded, “that under the circumstances we pledge the securities reserved by law for the special fund, and use the proceeds for the organization’s charities.” The directors looked at one another queerly, and adopted the resolution.

Alexander Dana Noyes
1930 Century Association Yearbook