The Washington union. [volume] (City of Washington [D.C.]) 1857-1859, 1857-10-09

every bank in the city Of Philadelphia, and every
bank, we believe, in the State of Pennsylvania,
fuses to pay its debts; and while thus refusing,
told to regard their suspensions measures of
general reliefv few, isolated failures, do not in
dicate general insolvency but when within period
at most of few hours all the banks of State do
cline to meet their engagements on, with few ex-
ceptons the first demands of their creditors,
think no stronger evidence could be furnished Of
their weakness, if not worthlessness, so far the
interests of the business community are concerned.
" Sound and solvent" If Gov. Pollock is sincere
in his belief why has he not spread before the egisa
ture he hastily summoned to the aid of the damaged
and damaging banks the reasons for the faith that
is in hims Sound and solyentl-but no facts and
fguresno balance sheets--no accounts of assets and
liabilities whisper about specie, circulation,
and deposites 1t cannot be said that the necessary
proofs of sonndness and solvency were overlooked
in the suddeess of the crash and the haste of in
vokng Legislative aid for the friends of the governor
and the banks are now resisting all attempts at in
vestigaton, the ground, we suppose, that pardon
and relief must first come before they can or will
show their hands.
With the view, doubtless, of meeting the objection
that while Legislative aid is invoked for the banks no
thought is bestowed upon the endorsements of
the private traders, Governor Pollock recommends
that provision "be made for extension of the time
in which execution judgments may increase the
period now provided by law for the stay of exeou-
TONS In other words the Governor wants gen.
era and more extended stay law. At the first glance
this would like putting private debtors and in
corporated debtors nearly the same footing of in
diligence but closer examination it will be dis
covered that the bankers and not the people, will be
the gamers by extension of the present stay law
of Pennsylvania may, that the great body of the
people will be losers by such extension. We
have already shown, think, in articles recently
published in the Union, that in very large majority
of the banks of this country not banks of
capital but banks of credit that their officers and
owners are men of small cash means and ex-
tensive discount wants that their banking opera
tons are predcated their credit and the depos-
ties of confding public; and that instead of hav-
ing money to loan for legitimate business purposes,
they themselves and their few favored friends
monopolze that credit such it is and borrow the
lions share of the deposites such as they may be.
We fancy that in these particulars exception
not be made in favor of majority of the Pennsylva
MIA banks Their officers and favortes, in many in
stances have borrowed the credit and the depostes
of their respective institutions and the patriotic
and financiering governor of the Commonwealth now
proposes to silence the clamor Of the bill-hoders
with legalized suspension of specie payments and
to relieve the embarrassments of the suffering de-
postors with new stay law.
There are other portions Of the message which we
may consider hereafter. In the mean time, we lay
before our readers the entire document.