Weekly national intelligencer., 1857-10-17

or foster spirit of dangerous speculation. How
inhuential and how bene6cent had been this func-
ton of the Bank Of the United States was sufi-
cienty provedby what ensued after It's destruction
The State banks, relieved from the restraining
power SO judiciously exercised BY the National
Bank, soon began to grant unreasonable and indis-
criminate credits, and, in the end, increased the
paper circulation of the country by s125 600, ,O0O
"A feverish impulse thereby given to all classes
of society; an unnatural rise took place in all
species of property, while, an index that mea-
sured this rash expansion and speculation, the sales
of the public lands were increased from So 800 600
in 1880 to 24,5OO,OO0in 1886. What followedin
1887 need not recapitulate, especially for those
who refuse to see any connexion between the re-
vulsion Of that year and the causes which had
sprung up to produce it. on the ruins of the Bank
of the United States.
Since the year 1887 other apanics" and /" pres
sures" have ensued- all, however, preceded by the
phenomena as those Which preluded the disasters
of that year The State Banks, without the control
of National Bank, which was directed by financial
wisdom and Skill have been found incapable of sus-
tanning well-regulated currency, and of furnish
ing medium for regulating the foreign or even the
domestic exchanges Of the country And this want
of national, uniform and stable currency has been
most severely felt by the poorer classes of the
munity How Immediately and how disastrously
these periodical Ievulsions affect those who depend
on their daily labor for their daily bread may be
seen in such distressing records the following,
which are now of daily occurrence in the public
prints, especially. of our larger cities. We quote
from the Washington Union:
sOne of hemost painful indications that the times
out of joint is contained in the following statistics of
the number of employees who, learn, have been dis
the past two weeks. Previous to that date the Cloak
makers Association unable to supply the demand
for labor This list comes up to noon to-day: A. M.
R. Davies Broadway, have discharged 510 girls and 10
girls and four cutters Broode, Canal street. has dis
charged 124 girls and two cutters. Mckenzie Canal
street. has discharged ninety girls and two cutters Isl
dore Bernard Grand street. has discharged 420 girls and
eight cutters NJ Bell, Canal street, has discharged
ninety-four girls and cutters g. M. Hendricks,
Eighth avenue has discharged sixtyfve girls and four
cutters"
Still we shall doubtless be told by the partisan,
who fulfls the old saw, that none are so blind as
those who aOU see that all these financial yicssi
tudes and misfortunes spring from which have
no connexion or relation with the fall of the United
States Bank 1t is true they were all foreseen and
predicted at the time, but party exigencies de-
manded that the voice of warning should be as un-
needed as Casandras, even though the event should
prove them to have been wellfounded as hers Since
the year 1882 we have had no United States Bank
IL H. L..
tariff for protection has been pronounced obsolete,
and its schedules have been more and more approx
mated to the line of free trade. And what do we
now see the effects of these much vaunted modi-
6cations in our national policy?
At time when all branches of productive in
dustry most fourishing when the harvests for
series of years have been the most bountiful when
California has been annually pouring her golden
wealth into our lap, are suddenly arrested in
career by "panic," crisis, !" and pressure"
in our monetary affairs which has prostrated or
crippled nearly all branches of industrial pursuit
and trade throughout the country. Indeed, we
have been brought to the extreme of financial bar
barsm, and instead of system of exchanges and
credits, deemed distinctive of enlightened and civil
lized nations, we have come in some recent in
stances, to the rude barter Of commodities as the
only available means of keeping up business COM
munication between different parts of the country.
Wheat is shipped from Chicago to Boston to dis
charge an obligation for which it was found impos
sible by the ordinary resorts of finance to procure
remittance.
In the face of such manifest arrangements in our
monetary system, we are still told that experience
has suggested no remedyw Allthe apprehended evils
of Bank of the United States still remain to haunt
us from the fact that the banks of the city of New
York. by virtue of their position in the commercial
metropolis of the country, supply the place formerly
filled by that institution as the regulator of the
currency; but, supplying that place without the
unity and intelligence which presided over the de-
beratons and directed the activity of the Bank of
the United States they powerless to exercise the
benefcent agency which it was able to perform.
They tend, in time Of prosperity, to promote un-
duly the speculative spirit inherent in our country
men, and, disregarding or unable to descry the
signs which portend dangers ahead, they then ag
gravate the evils they have contributed to by
suddenly commencing course of curtailment and
restriction when it is too late
Under the operation of the United States Bank
we witnessed none Of these things. Property had a
gradual and natural upward tendency agriculture,
manufactures, and commerce were in fourishing
condition extravagant speculations rarely en-
tered into, or, if entered into with any generality
were speedily checked by the wholesome restrictive
power which the Bank could judiciously apply from
the wide and far-reaching scope of its financial
knowledge in the premises Now we have all the
Banks power for evil without its compensating
power for good Instead of the monster with
one head, we have monster with many heads.
We have thought it proper to advert to these in
contestabe facts at the present time because it is