Daniel Richard Crissinger was an American Comptroller of the Currency and governor of the Federal Reserve Board.
Background
Daniel Richard Crissinger was born on December 10, 1860 in Tully Township, Ohio, United States. The only child of John and Margaret (Ganshorn) Dunham Crissinger to survive infancy, he was descended from Henry Grissinger, who emigrated in 1777 from Holland to Pennsylvania. Crissinger's mother, a native of Heidelberg, Germany, had earlier been widowed, and the family included two older half sisters. The elder Crissinger, a farmer, purchased in 1863 a country store in nearby Caledonia. Having acquired additional farm land and a lumber mill, he moved in 1883 to Marion.
Education
Young Crissinger was educated at a local one-room school, at Buchtel College (later the University of Akron), from which he graduated in 1885, and, after reading law briefly with Judge William Z. Davis, at the University of Cincinnati Law School (LL. B. 1886).
Career
Admitted to the bar in 1886, he returned to Marion, where he practiced for one year in partnership with Davis before winning office on the Democratic ticket: twice as prosecuting attorney (1888 - 93) and three times as city solicitor (1893 - 99). At the same time he built a highly respected law practice, acquired farm land, and developed a substantial stock-feeding business. In 1898 he became the attorney for the Marion Steam Shovel Company, the city's leading business firm.
When Warren G. Harding won the Republican presidential nomination in 1920, Crissinger headed the committee to entertain the city's out-of-town guests. On becoming president, Harding appointed his old friend Comptroller of the Currency, although Crissinger's only qualification was his presidency of a small bank in Marion.
The appointment carried with it membership on the seven-man Federal Reserve Board, and on January 12, 1923, Harding made Crissinger governor of the board, an office for which he was clearly unsuited. In the judgment of the economist Lester V. Chandler, Crissinger "knew almost nothing of economics and finance, learned little, [and] was incompetent as an administrator". His inability to establish a good working relationship with the other members of the board created an atmosphere of internal bickering which disrupted routine work. Under his weak leadership, Benjamin Strong of the New York Federal Reserve Bank became more than ever the dominant figure in determining Federal Reserve policies. Although Crissinger resigned in 1927 while under fire for forcing the Chicago Federal Reserve Bank against its wishes to lower its rediscount rates, he had apparently decided some months earlier to leave government service for a position with the F. H. Smith Company, a mortgage loan firm in Washington, D. C.
As a director and chairman of the executive committee, Crissinger along with six other members of the firm was indicted by federal authorities in 1929 for using the mails to defraud, but the charges were dropped in 1932. Two years later Crissinger retired and returned to Marion.
Bedridden after 1939, apparently from a weak heart, Crissinger died in Marion of pneumonia in 1942. He was buried in the Marion Cemetery in an unmarked grave beside his parents.
Achievements
An able Comptroller, Crissinger extended branch banking within cities and sought to bring more state banks into the national banking system.
Politics
An unsuccessful Democratic candidate for Congress in 1904 and 1906, Crissinger eventually became a Republican through his friendship with Warren G. Harding, owner-editor of the Marion Star.
Connections
On April 18, 1880, Crissinger had married Ella Frances Scranton of Concord, Michigan. They had two daughters, Donna Ruth and Beatrice Elizabeth.
