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a P. Giannini touched the lives of accomplished people recently. A few of his fellow bank americans shared with us their memories and insights into this very special man who founded this very special institution and now through their eyes, here is a P. And they peace out

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in the corner over there one day. Well not too long, maybe a couple of days. I was bringing in a lot of silver and I had a couple of sacks on my shoulder and packing one and he saw me, he told me I was, I was

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doing too much to take one at a time. I was too heavy. That's when I made a p. He always tried to give advice or to help people and to tell them how they could do things, what would be best to do if they asked his

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advice. He was always helpful to anybody who wanted to talk to him. I mean, you know he kept his, he never had a he never had a private office. His desk was always where anyone could walk up to it and he was available and ready to

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help anybody earthquake. I mean this man told me now, he said his father was coming down comments avenue and ap was coming down walking up and he was felt bad and he told ap he says lost everything, lost everything ap uh everything is gone. I'm crying.

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He says, I know what I'm gonna do. He says, you don't worry, nothing, you come down, give you a loan. You pay me back when you want to. You ain't never won, you're the first you're a customer. He opened up a little branch on the pier

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down there and to this day this boy reminds me of what Ap did for his father given the money and he paid him back. I've seen him help people. You know people that that needed help. He'd lend the money without any security or any anything. Just

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so here he called the bank and call some place to say here take care of this man, let him what he needs. And he I don't think he ever lost and I don't think the bank ever lost anything through that. But he did it more than

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once. Many times. He liked people, he liked people very much and no matter who they were, he chauffeurs, he took good care of small people, even the little sandwich man he could see the he grew up the street, the newspaper fellas, he selling papers they all

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knew ap all talked and talked about their first names and he liked you go on the trains and they all want to fight to get a P in the drawing room that they had their car on. They all like to wait on a P anytime Jeannie

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was any place at all. Got around him and he didn't care where they made a speech in front of Montgomery street or North Beach. 300 Montgomery didn't care where it was. He just loved people. People loved him. He was a big, you've seen pictures of big

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stature, he had a smile and always remember names. I saw a p at the public reception during the course of the opening of the new building at number one policy, but I didn't meet him, But I had worked down in the basement at # one Powell

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Street in the collection department for about two months. When all of a sudden one morning here, he was standing right in front of my desk and I jumped up and introduced myself and he asked me a lot of questions about when I when I come to

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work there and where I'd worked before, how old I was, whether I was married or not. A lot of questions. Uh he was going through the building to say goodbye to his boys and girls and he explained to me at that moment that he was going

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to go to europe and stay away for a year. And this was to prove that the bank was not a one man institution, you know, And he would say that you you and the rest of this fine group of people we have here will carry on.

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And he gave me a lecture on carrying on, Well the year went by and during that year I got a new job and I'm up on the second floor and I have a desk right in front of the elevator and the elevator opened an ap, walked

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in and I jumped up and I was about to say, I'm Russ smith. And he said, Russ, what are you doing up here indicating that he not only remembered my name, but the fact that he had, when he left, I was down in the basement on

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the second floor. When we came through that door, the whole the whole floor woke up just like they've been asleep dallying around. When he came in there, it was different. There was just an undercurrent, an electric current that went through. I think one of the biggest

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thing when ap shook hands and every time I hear someone that just gives you a good shake hand I think Ap and he looked straight in the eye. He just didn't give you a soft hand, just looked over you to go around and visit every branch

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and he was happy doing it. And he got to know the people behind the desks tellers, the bookkeepers, and when he'd go into a branch he'd call them by their first names, it wouldn't stop and have a long conversation. But Hello Jack, how are you? You

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know that, that fashion. And they loved it. And I admired him very, very much. In fact, I I admired him more, I guess than any man I ever knew and he must have been something of a magician because he inspired me with wanting to do something

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without making a lot of money out of us, loyalty as we had. Was beautiful, really was, you don't, you don't buy loyalty, you earn it and ap earned it because he loved them. He really and truly his greatest concern was I'd come home, tell him about

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something happened to an employee. First thing he did in the morning was called up the bank and raise cain about it any individual. And and he got results. One of the things he always did when he went into a branch was look at the long pouch

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Over one x 1. Then quickly he didn't spend all day but generally see how the trend was. And in more than one instance that I know of one, particularly in Bakersfield because the manager who was a manager at the time told me this, He called the

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manager and he says, Hey look at this, look at this, he said, look at this every, everything is 100% here. You're not doing your job, you can't lend money and not lose something once in a while, you haven't lost a dime. This was typical. And then

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he'd say will, who are your main accounts up and down the street, run close by, I'd like to go by and shake their hands unannounced, managed to get up and walk down the street and here all of a sudden merchant. So ap, jesus, that's a shock,

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you know, and you normally call one guy, I was sort of in the back when walking down behind him. This fella can't think of his name was on his shirt and he ran to get his coat a piece. You don't have to put your coat on.

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I came in to see you and not the coat. Almost everybody he would have contact with, no matter what the contact was, if he liked him, if he thought they were good people would say, you ought to come work for the Bank of America, there's a

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lot of future. They're great opportunity. And I remember on one occasion and of course the antitrust case, he suggested to Leonard Townsend who was the attorney for the Federal Reserve Board and who was was prosecuting the case. He ought to come to work for the bank

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and I scolded ap for it. Afterwards I said, hey p he's the enemy, You you don't want to do that. That would be misinterpreted. He said, well I can hold out little hope to him can't I? His idea was to give banking services to the people

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who were denied it denied them because in those days anybody who wasn't very wealthy or a very important person couldn't use a bank, neither to put in their money or to get a loan. And he felt that was the banks weren't serving their purpose. Their purpose

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was to help people and to help people help themselves and make themselves better and give more to the world. And that's what our bank did. We. We catered to people who had never before been allowed to enter a bank. They kept their money in mattresses or

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in safe or wherever they could. The little fellow to him was Number one, an individual who made his own way, who was thoroughly honest in his efforts and was providing something for other people. Whether it's consumer or associates or whatever, it wasn't usually an individual who

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had become wealthy or who had made a lot of money in the stock market. It was the individual who made it himself and did it. Honestly, that was an awful And those are the people he wanted really wanted to see coming into the bank. He loved

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it when they came and he loved it when they came in to see him. He wouldn't care who he was talking to. He would take time out to talk to them and he didn't like to see lines in the back. I mean if if they had

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to wait, he says open another winner, take care of them. Give them preference. Don't keep him waiting, give them good service. That was the main thing. Give them good service many times would be closed balance up. We'd have to all do everything over again. Open up

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for him, take care of it. He'd be watching too. You did it if you saw a line you did it on your own because you know a p would be over there. Uh huh. Come to a p. That the Wells Fargo bank might be for sale.

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And this particular young vice president had gone over to see a P. And asked him if he would be interested in considering purchasing the bank. And according to this testimony of the former Wells Fargo Vice President Ap said, well I don't know. Let me see a

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list of your depositors. So the Wells Fargo man went back and got a list. Came back. C. A. P. With a P looked up and down the list. He said you've got all Rockefellers on here and no boot blacks. And he left that again for a

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minute. And then he said, and you know, young man, I'd rather have 1000 boot blacks as one Rockefeller and I'll tell you something else, if I get all the boot plaques, I'll have the Rockefellers too there. That that was a very guts of his philosophy namely

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small depositor. Little people that's the little people serve them. He was in my brick, he uh he didn't belong to the same clubs. Uh he didn't follow the same rules in his early days in banking. It was not considered ethical for banks to advertise A P.

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Went out and advertised. It was not considered good taste to buy out a competitor. Ap went out and bought them right and left. Uh It was not considered good manners too lend money to somebody that another bank had turned down a P. Did it all the

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time And he kept the opposition guessing he was a go getter. I mean by that is he was a fighter. I mean, he didn't take something back out. He wouldn't do it. He if he was if he knew it was a right that he was fighting

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right to the end. His qualities in there were marvelous. He didn't like anybody shrieked back, fight it. If you're right, fight it. He was having trouble with morganthal. And uh, Jack Bergen was a great friend of the roosevelts. Mrs Roosevelt came out to Mark Hopkins and

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Jack Bergman said, I'll have you come up meet mrs Roosevelt and bring some flowers up there. Well, ap was not the man to carry a bunch of roses with him, but he walked up to Mark copy and he walked in and the story I get, he

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said, Mr Roosevelt tried to meet you. He said, here's some roses for you, by, by the way, but I want your husband to do something about that fellow, morganthal. He's ruining my institutions. Just spoke up. He insisted on having proper moral uh, behavior by his officers.

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He was very quick to jump on somebody with both feet when he thought that he wasn't behaving in a proper manner. And uh, we were in ST louis one time and we had a press conference and he got onto the subject of golf and he told

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these reporters. What a time waster golf was. These fellows have played a lot of golf on the business time claim that the way to develop business, he didn't think, he didn't think any serious business was developed on the golf course. And that anyway, he got a

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headline in the morning paper the next morning and ST louis paper and they came up to the hotel room with an armful of papers And said Russ, I want you to be sure that this gets. And then he named about four or 56 officers of the

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bank playing a lot of golf. Now this was his but Ireland will style admonition by indirection in which he wants to tell three or four officers that they're playing too much golf and spending too much of the bank's time on the golf course. And he does

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it by giving an interview to press. In ST louis. We never spend any time idly when he was around the house we'd go on trips, we'd tour all the different areas. He'd see it everywhere san Francisco san mateo California everywhere. And he was always observing growth

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and progress and anticipating what might come. I mean way when san Francisco was nothing but sand dunes. He said claire, you live to see this all built up a P. S vision was the greatest of any person I've ever seen and the greatest vision of any

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person I've ever seen. And that's what made bank for America the number one bank in the world dr nick called him and said to me walt Disney come up be sure you induce from JP and I took him over then a P I took him over

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to walt Disney and says walt what do you want? He said I want to get $200,000 or so. He says we're gonna make Snow White and the seven dwarfs were gonna call and he turned the blower and he said this is okay well we gotta stay

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you know a piece of like it's gonna be okay. So we went on him he gave the money on them. That's how many people got started. Just whistle and cheerfully. Hi California is a lot. They don't realize that I don't understand. They don't

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realize what he did for the California. He really built California. I was in Washington D. C. And the man that I was with was general counsel for the Metropolitan Transit Authority um said let's go by and see Senator Clair Engle. Senator Engle was from up around

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Chico I think. And uh so when he learned that I was from the bank of America he said I have to tell you that a P. Giannini saved the state of California. He said we were in desperate financial state straits and we visited Ap and ap

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said I'll see you through and he did it. I think I think one thing was his total disregard of his own importance. He never really felt important himself. He only he only felt he only felt important of importance of everyone and he he was he could

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understand people, he could understand their problems and and he seemed to have to be able to know what was traveling people even on great on a great scale. And I think that was the main thing that made him great. I think it was his love of

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humanity and his desire to help humanity. I think that was what made him great of there's anything else. He didn't care too much for money. Ap says money rules you, you don't rule. Ap he lived a very conservative life. He never spent a lot of money

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foolishly or anything. But he had a good life. He didn't want every everybody's millionaires. He says they're not happy. Tell me millionaires are not happy. I don't he didn't care too much for money. He could have been a billionaire a peak in the old days if

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you wanted to. But he wouldn't do it. He gave it away. He got a salary of a dollar a year and he wouldn't even let me cash that check. I had more than safe deposit pots. He called me up once in a while and say will

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you go down to the bank and get $25 for me. Never even carried carried very little money around with him. It's just amazing question about that. That's what made this bank Mr Giuliani people people's regard for him trusted him. I knew he was honest. I knew

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that he wanted to serve them and not somebody else. They knew that he never wanted to be a millionaire. He didn't do anything to make money. He recognized that you had the corporation had to make profits in order to exist. But that isn't that wasn't the

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reason for the Bank of America. The reason for the Bank of America was service. He had something that was, I currently don't know what it is. Just you wanted to do things for him. He's unbelievable, unbelievable. I'm very happy that I had the honor and the

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pleasure in my life to work for him and I only wish they were here again today before we could go right on. I'm getting up and I'm on the way out now. But I sure wish we could start all over again. Maybe I'll see him when

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we started burning someplace. I just have a reverence for ap gin and in fact I I look at the pictures and we have a couple of them at home. If I'm kind of confused or troubled about something. I I look at that picture and think about

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him and kind of calm down. He really has a terrific influence with me. Everything works out for the bank. You don't have to worry, you've been through a lot of this stuff. The bank's gonna come out way ahead. Everybody else might take a little time. Probably

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I won't be here. But you can remember me telling you anyway. I said I told my wife I said don't sell bank of America, save it forever. I said there will always be a bank of America. There will always be in a Pg looking down on

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it.