Why should January 1st of each year be called happy? The Bank of Skidmore had some thoughts on the new year as a brand-new ledger book and a chance to save for the future, as we see in this advertisement from the January 11, 1912 edition, page 1 (Full text of ad is below):
Happy New Year! Why should January 1st of each successive year be called happy? Why is it happier than any other part of the year? Because custom has decreed that at that particular time a certain part of our life with all its strife and care, its successes and defeats, its hopes and fears, shall be gathered into a volume and be closed.
Its mistakes to be forgotten, save the lessons that they bring; its achievements, valued only as they make us more humble and helpful. But the happiest of the happy part is that before us is spread a new, clean sheet, spotless as the snow, upon which we can commence all over again our way of life, without the irregular, zig-zaggy, uncertain, blotted, broken lines you know the volume just closed contains.
Yes, the happiest part lies in the vision we get of what we can be, and the resolution we make that we will build some of our possible selves into our real selves in the coming year. That means that from now on we are a beings with purpose. One of the first needs of a person with an ambition aroused, an end to be attained, is Capital. How to obtain this becomes a paramount question. History with all its different phases of fortunes amassed gives but one way, and that is saving a part of your income, no matter what that income may be.
Commence today, you who are tracing your first lines on the clean sheet before you.
Come to The Bank of Skidmore with your savings, for that is all that any money is; it is also a part of yourselves, for you have given a part of yourself to get it, and the best part of yourself to save it. Come with it, we say, and we will treat it as such an offering deserves, “A Sacred Trust.” We appreciate how much it cost you to get it and what it means to you to feel that it is safe, and yet ready for you whenever you may need it.
The Home Bank.
The Bank of Skidmore.
W. R. Linville, President. W. S. Linville, Cashier. G. F. Kellogg, Assistant Cashier.