Port Royal commercial and Beaufort County Republican. [volume] (Port Royal, S.C.) 1873-1874, 1873-10-23
The Panic Passing Away.
Some of the Causes Which Produced It,
and the Duties That Will Follow II.

Some of the Causes Which Produced It,
and the Duties That Will Follow II.
The best simile we can find to de-
scribe the week of panic in Wall street,
says New York paper, is that of sim.
pie confagration. Indeed, it would be
almost as easy to make a map of the
burned district as it was of Chicago
or Boston or Baltimore. A few streets
in the neighborhood of Wall and Broad
included all that there was OF real
financial danger or actual financial dis
aster. A few daring and speculative
brokers, and fewer unsound banks and
trust companies, yielded to the flames
for which they had provided the COM
bustibles, but beyond these no business
interest suffered, and trade generally
was unaffected. Even the failure OF
Henry Clews & Co., and Howes & Macy,
added little to the excitement, and it
seemed apparent on every hand that
the panic was slowly dying away. In
the end it will scarcely be regarded as
q disaster certainly not national dis
aster. The great lesson of the panic is,
that while it caused fear and alarm al
most everywhere, it was in reality con-
fined to those who created 1t, and it is
apparent at last that Wall street may
be convulsed to its very foundations
without involving anything beyond it.
Hereafter the bulls and bears of the
street may tear each other to pieces,
and they will only be regarded by solid
business men as so many marlonettes
playing their puppet parts for the
amusement of people who delight in
Witnessing the curious effects produced
by cleverly managed machinery.
The panic came almost without fore
warning, but it was the result OF causes
long in active operation. The war had
left us q legacy of shams and false
growths. Though it is more than eight
years since, we were not yet free from
the fatal poison of war speculations and
the loose notions of business and bust
ness integrity with which the people
were innoculated. And other things
grew out of the war equally hurtful
with this constitutional disease. 1t gave
us an>inAated currency, which enticed
men into speculations, certain at some
time to create stringency for them.
Overtrading, consequent upon the war
spirit of speculation, depleted the
country of its gold and made a return
to specie payments impoitic, If not i'm
possible. Watered stocks became a
common species of fraud and rendered
shares comparatively worthless, while
their values were unsettled and uncer-
tain.
The reckless management of trust
companies and savings banks was in
keeping with the daring spirit of specu-
lation which has Just caused the bank
ers in Wall street who sowed the wind
to reap the whirlwind. The constant
recurrence of defalcations by men hold
ing the most sacred fduciary rela-
tions to the people and the government,
and the deadening moral tone among
classes of society, tended to bring
about the crash which well nigh in
volved the country in ruin. 1t is re-
markable circumstance that financial
houses antedating the war have fallen
because of the evils generated by the
war. They caught the infection, and,
though they seemed to fatten on the
poison, they were swept away by the
plague in the end. The results have
been fearful, but they bring with them
promise of purer health and sweeter
strength in the future.
1t would be easy to prophesy that SO
many concentric circles of evil, all tend
ing to destruction, would, sooner OF
later, bring terrible punishment; but
it was not so easy to foresec that among
so much of the evil there should be
even more of good. The commercial
and industrial interests of the country
are sound and secure. The national
credit is firm and unshaken. Gold is
as stable as in ordinary times. All these
are healthful signs-especially health
full when Wall street is convulsed with
out convulsing anything beyond it. II
was almost a tradition that when the
street is sick the country is also sick,
NOW, uOWGNeT, IL 10 hSGOulSucu ouao ~
lacked the power to disseminate disease.
The failures which followed each Other
in such rapid succession were only sc
many pebbles thrown into the pool
which had no effect except to make rip
Piles on the surface. No initiation oi
the currency was needed beyond the
wants of few spectators. The United
States Treasury gave them greenbacks
for bonds and refused them everything
else /; but even here the spectators
were unfortunate, for those who most
needed the greenbacks did not have the
bonds. Nothing was left to them ex
cept to go:to the wall, and in going they
have so far hurt nobody outside of the
whirlpool of speculation. The great
business interests which centre in the
metropolis see that they are independ.
ent of the men who toss stocks up and
down, and in the future fancy shares
bought and sold upon a margin will
have little more influence upon the mar
ket than the triumphs of the prima
donna at the opera.