Wilmington daily commercial., 1873-10-15
THE PREsrDENrls r1NANC1AL VIEWS.


The New York Tribune succeeded in finding.
on Monday, = bank official who had very poor
opinion of President Grants financial views, and
who, after talking go long that the reporter
could not compress his notions into less than
half column, wound up by saying that the whole
scheme of Post Office Savings Banks was such
mass Of incongruities and sbsurdities, as to be
utterly beneath the dignity Of criticism"
This very positive bank official, il the game
were worth the powder might find his half col
umn Of notions, matured behind his discount
table, and calculated expressly for the latitude
Of New York citys interests, quite as thorough
ly punctured as he imaglnes the expressions Of
the President were, when he closed his conver-
sston with the reporter. For instance, he
thinks there was no relief in the letting out of
greenbacks by Secretary Richardson, during the
Panic. This is the after thought. Everybody
said at the time, that there was not only moral
relief" such az the President claims, but an ac-
tual easing of the stringency. The bank man
now thinks otherwise, because he says the cur
rsncy went into the Savings Bank vaults, and
was there "hoarded." supposing this true,
how much less valuable were the notes in the
vaults OF the Savings Banks, than in the vaults
Of the treasury But is it not, above all, true
that by strengthening those institutions by en-
sblng them to meet and calm their depostors,
one Of the very best results was accomplished
Suppose the Savings Banks had all been forced
to close their doors, would not the Panic have
been worse? And. il it did nothing more than
prevent that, was not the letting-out of curren-
cy an excellent measure
The bank official declares fatty that it is ''un-
true" that greenbacks have appreciated ITO
about par in silver" This is a question of fact,
which seems hardly worth disputing about but
il the bank official reads the newspaper to
whose reporter he was talking, he must have
seen its statement, made on this very Monday,
when he was talking, that ION Saturday, silver
coins Of a half-dollar and under could be OBJ
tanned in exchange for greenbacks, at par" We
take it, that such statement would justify
President Grant in saying that currency was
"about" at par with silver and that it does not
justify the bank man in asserting that the Pres.
ident's averment was untrue"
Other ideas of the President are declared BY
this superior New York person to be ''simply
wild" For instance, the issue Of the forty-foul
million reserve. But it seems that the Presi-
dent did not mean to be understood as desiring
toIisaue that. He said-as a corrected repol'
gives his views-that he thought Congress,
should distinctly authorize the Secretary of the
Treasury to draw upon it when necessary to mee
the expenses of the Government by which au,
thority the necessity for keeping in the Treasury
vaults large "hoard"s of currency would bt
avoided.
1t therefore appears that the President is ne
so " wild as his critic thought him. In fac
wildness is not one of General Grants charac
tsristics. The other day, when New York was sc
nearly gone crazy over its disturbed speculations
that it thought Secretary Richardson ought t.
move the sub Treasury into the Stock Exchange
and hand out the funds to any distressed opera
tor who thought he should like to have come
the President was decidedly cooler in his iudg
ment having passed through furries quite at
severe in degree if not precisely similar in char
acter, in Wilderness worae than that of Wal
Street.
II, however we are to criticiss all ideas that
are wild, what did the bank off lial mean b
saying that "al that was necessary now was t.
comply with the requirements Of the Nationa
banking law ana any person could create ban
and issue the specified amount Of notes :" Thi
is an error in reporting, Perhaps at any rate
10 well known not to be true, No person can, i
fact, issue bank notes, unless he gets them froI
the Treasury, and as the prescibed amount ha
been long since given out, the Treasury cannc
give any more.
As for Post Office Savings Bank, it is pre-
position to be considered. and perhaps not to b
adopted. The New Yorker finds thousand oh
1eotions to it, Of course, but these are only h
notions, and other people have theirs Bat whe
he fears that the postmasters would steal th
money, does he really think them worse thieve
than some scores of New York cashiers, 8,
cretaries, tellers, clerks, &C., whose defalcatior
have ruined more banking and savings institr
tions in that city than all the panics since 81
If he does, We beg to differ.