The Athens post. [volume] (Athens, Tenn.) 1848-1917, 1857-11-20
VANDALISM.

We ars sorry to see so many inscription
demagogues in the country who advocate put
ting down all banks and all credit. Not lonl
: since, the Washington Union, the organ o.
these Jewellers, published hard money ar!i
Gle, in which the editor emphatcally recon-
mended the ending of the paper system.
In reply TO this article, the New York Cou
rier and Enquirer has some very pertinent
and sound views which we earnestly recon.
mend TO the attention of our readers. No
man of sense believes it possible to abolish
the credi, system ia this country. 1t cannot
and will not be done; nevertheless, dema-
gogues will make il hobby to promote par
tizan objects. We therefore wish to give the
people information upon this, to them, vital
ly important subject, that they may not be
misled by the designing;
We have no apprehension that the country
will at this late day be induced 10. accept any
Of the hard money dogmas which were so
rife at the time the sub-treasury system was
first inaugurated. The idea of excluding all
paper currency, and of coming down to the
metallic system of China and of India, is
barbaric. II is out of all keeping with the
characteristics and the processes of modern
commerce and civilization. 1t is perhaps pos
sible to start wild destructive hue and cry
against institutions Of credit, which shall in
some measure impair confidence and embar-
rass business, and which may also have the
effect os arraying one class Of society against
another, but il is idle to imagine that an
end will be put to these institutions. What
the Union stigmatises as the "paper system"
is so deeply and intimately interviewer in the
whole industrial and economic organization Of
the country. that it cannot be destroyed with
out fatally paralyzing all, and 1t is supreme
folly TO attemptit.
But, though unqualified in our condemna,
ton of this Vandal spirit, still we do not our
selves regard our banking system as yet per-
feet. The simple fact that every bank in this
State, in time Of peace and prosperity, has
suspended specie payments, is proof positive
that the law which created them is not com
| pletely etfectual. True, that law has made
the banks secure. There are now no broken
banks-no banks without assets sufficient to
indemnify all bl-holders. And herein the
! present system is q vast Improvement over
| tUut WHICH tAtSttu tWtuty 1cdT5 uSOs Dut
there is another point, quite as important, in
respect to which there has been no such i'm
provement. Though the bank circulation is
secure, it is not steady. 1t is still subject to
expansions and contractions that tell with
most ealamitous effect upon the business in.
,eresis of society. Had every dollar of the
eight or nine millions of our city bank mo-
ney been turned into worthless rags two
months ago, and been forever lost to the
| holders, the damage would have been moth
| ing, intrinsically, compared to what has re-
suited from the contraction Of their dis
counts since that date. A sudden contraction
| Of this kind following great expansion is
the most terrible visitation that can befal q
commercial community. But the law has yet
applied no fit means TO guard against it. It
has virtually left the banks to regulate their
movements 10 this particular according to
their own sense of their self-interest--a self.
interest that may be more or less. literally,
more or less intelligiby, construed.
To justify this freedom, it should be es-
tablished first that the interests Of bank
are always strictly accordant with the public
interests, and second that the directors of a
bank are men of such perfect intelligence
and expanded views as to be capable of ap-
preciating what its real interests are, and Of
taking such wise and timely precautions rs
would prevent the necessity for those sud
den and stringent measures which bring up
on its customers such calamitous consequen
ces. Even though il be admitted that the in
terests of bank and the interests of the
public are in reality coincident yet what does
that avail if there be no certainty that these
interests will be rightly comprehended and
faithfully regarded! Banks are traders, and
all experience proves that their dominant mo-
tives are the motives of traders. They are
anxious to make large profits, and in that
anxiety they are liable to overtrade, and such
overtrading in banking business as in all 9th
er kinds of business, draws after it, sooner
or later, necessity for reduction. The banks
find safety IN this reduction, especially when
relieved from the obligations they assumed in
flush times to pay their notes on demand; it
IL upon the heads Of their innocent mercan-
tile customers that the penalty chiefly falls.
One of the most useful functions of the
United States Bank was TO restrain the ex-
cessive issues of other banks, and thus pre-
vent an undue expansion with the conse-
uuent calamitous reaction. But that institu- !
ton has gone, and will not for n long time to
come, If ever, be restored. Yet the necessity |
of restraining ard regulating the State bank
issues has not been superseded. 1t is still
urgent, in spite of all the securities that have
been added to insure the redemption Of the
notes. There must be some means devised
for keeping bank accumu!ations within closer
limits and ut some steadier level; and II
banks through an unwise selfshness or an
inability TO act in concert will not or cannot |
do this, the resources of legislation should
be drawn upon and regulations be devised
and applied that shall serve the purpose. The
work would not be an easy one, we admit
The history Of Sir Robert Peel's Bank Re-
strlction Act Of twelve years ago sufficiently |
indicates that. But that It will some day be
successfully effected we have little doubt
This is proper field for the exercise Of the
practical talent of the county. To abolish
the present banking system, even were It pos
sible. would be madness; to remove all evils
incident to il, il it be possible, will be proof
Of the highest wisdom.
WoMAN's LAuGH.-A woman has no natu-
raj grace more bewi,ching than a sweet laugh.
Il leaps from her heart in clear sparkling rill;
the heart hears il and feels bathed in the ex-
hilarating spring. It turns the prose Of our
life into poetry; 1t filings showers of sun