The Washington union. [volume] (City of Washington [D.C.]) 1857-1859, 1857-10-21
THE RANKING SYSTEM, ITS DEFECTS AND
ABUSES--CONTINUED.

THE RANKING SYSTEM, ITS DEFECTS AND
ABUSES CONTINUED.
The season of calamity is that of expedients for
avoiding it in future and when the vessel is wreck
and the passengers all drowned the people on
shore begin to speculate the means by which the
catastrophe might have been prevented Such seems
TO be the case at present. The banking system has
again suffered shipwreck, and many who trusted in
it's seaworthiness have gone to the bottom AT such
a time the minds of men open to the les
sons of experience and likely to adopt effect
nal remedies for that by which they have suffered
severely. We ourselves have lived to see four of
those revulsions reactions in the paper system,
and, though rather lookers-on than actors in the
scene, invariably observed that so identical were
their causes and SO uniform their effects as to dem
onstrate beyond all doubt that they all proceeded
from the same source. We are now offering to the
public the results of our experience, in the hope it
may do some good and the conviction It can do no
harm.
To those who reflect the indissolube union of
cause and effect it neither requires the lessons of
experience the discipline of suffering to bring home
the conviction that the of these periodical
reactions and revulsons which at intervals al
most regularly the return of the seasons are
innate and inseparable from the system of credit and
paper money and cannot be avoided prevented, or
remedied by all the wisdom and all the virtue oflegs
lators. 1t is in vain ascribe these inevitable con-
sequences to enormous speculations in lands mpru-
dent investments in railroad stocks yielding prof
it's to the general extravaganza which unquestion-
ably prevails among all classes. All these are but
the effects of great universal cause, and derived
from one source system of banking which newt
ably leads men into all these temptations and fur
nishes them with the means of gratifying them.
If, as is alleged, the present disastrous monetary
crisis was brought about by imprudent speculation
in lands Improbable investments in railroad stocks,
a general extravaganza in living, or by all these
causes combined we would ask from whence were
derived the for indulging in these impruden-
ces and extravagances? Are they not in o great
measure, if not altogether, derived from bank loans
and accommodations In tracing them to their
source it will always be found in the banks. If
man aspres to become millionaire all of a sudden,
he goes to the bank to furnish him with the means.
If he wishes to subscribe to the stock of railroad
Oh gigantic scale, he relies the same source
not unfrcquently becomes his partner; and it, led
away by universal example, he seeks to spend more
than he is worth in ostenatious extravaganza it is
the same thing All equally depend on the banks to
enable them to realize their anticpations and crafty
their preposterous vanity their graspng avarice.
The stream which branches out in 80 many drec-
tions--which at time overfows the land with an
inundation at another leaves it barren, brown, and
parched in the dry and rainy seasons of the trop-
ics--has but one main source. As, in reasoning on
the creation of the world, and the great phenomena
of nature, we invariably arrive at one great first
cause 50, in the investigation of those revulsions
and reactions which sweep the land like equi-
noctial gales, may always trace them to that
"baseless fabric which, though in itself an unconst-
tutional bubble exercises more real influence over
the destines of millions than any power possessed
by the government itself. But let trace the snake
through the grass. ..e......
All mankind contain wants to supply, either
natural or artfcial-certain passions which cannot
be gratied unless they have equivalent to give
in return for the means Of qualification. In all
tries boasting of their civilization the universal
dunn for supplying these wants and gratifying these
passions Is money The desire Tor money, therefore,
becomes universal the exceptions being few they
are not worth considering. If men--we speak of
mankind generally--have no money to supply their
necessities crafty their love of ostentation, and
no substantial equivalent to offer, they will resort to
other means They will either borrow the money
or make use OF their credit in some other way to
crafty their longing. The prevailing propensity of
man is, therefore, borrowing, or going upon tick as
it is aptly termed by that class of people called vul
gar who have happy knack of designating things
by their right names.
This propensity to borrowing, going upon tick,
is considered by all moral writer's and teachers as al
most invariably leading to the most mschievous and
disastrous consequences in the end. 1t leads they
say men into temptations and affords the means Of
gratifying them too often at the expense of others.
wise government, it would seem, therefore, in
stead of providing and facilities for borrowing
money and running in debt ought to discourage it,
both by precept and example if for no other reason
than that in country like ours, where the majority
rules and debtors more numerous than creditors,
il is very certain the former viii govern and egisa
ton become their pander, instead of passing laws to
secure the rights of the lattern other words, the
rights of property. This has been exemphfed more