Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-01-03
WHY BANKS SMASH.
At the Bottom of Il All Is the Sin Of
the Age, Lust for Gold.
MEN DON'T. WANT IT FOR ITSELF,
But the Brilliant Display and Social
Standing 1t Will Buy.
FALSE STANDARDS FOE THE BOYS
rwnrrrxN For THE prsrArcH1

WRITTEN FOR THE DISPATCH,
Tho popular amusement In Boston for
some weeks has been attending bank mat
inees. The attractions have been at times
sufficient to crowd School street opposite
| the Five Cent Savings Bank through the
entire hours of daylight. The failure of
the Maverick Bank was the tocsin of Wa
terloo to bank directors in and about the
city, where there was hurrying in hot haste
and cheeks all pale with the necessity of
Strengthening out accounts, and covering
deficiencies from carrying private specula-
tons with the funds.
| There probably is no city on the continent
where business inside bank circles is con-
ducted on such peculiarly individual
methods as Boston. can speak from an
inside views of the facts, which cost my
family about $40, 900 face value, and three
times as much in reality, indirectly from
the fondness of very respectable bank of
ficer for doing business on other peoples
! money. From q personal and literary
point Of view, I do not know but 1t
was worth the money. Inside views of
highly respectable human nature come e1-
pensive, and everybody isn't favored with
them. As far as one gentle, blameless soul
who went insane with the shock, and died
shortly, her case has been adjourned to q
Superior Court, with the justice of whose
rulings no one was ger yet known to be
dissatisfied.
Running Business on Faith.
Business, like healing, in certain parts Of
the country is largely carried on on faith
principles Traditional and inherited re-
pute for honesty, the confidence of friends
and community, added to well-scoured repu-
tations, are a floating capital practically un-
limited. You believe in a man, therefore
YOU lend him your securities without
troubling to take receipt you object to
the trouble of scrutinizing his accounts or
his business methods, you leave your. money
uncounted in his vaults, ycu sign the papers
he puts before you without reading them,
you support whatever scheme he concocts,
and turn the cold shoulder where hefrowns
Not only do you trust him unguardedly
with your own, but with your neighbors'
property, the public school funds, the
church money, the little legacies for poor
ladies which are too small for you to bother
your head about, the few thousands of the
widow for whom you are administrator
You believe the ice will bear. so you load
it without caring to remember that every
thing has its breaking strain. Ominous
creaks reach the ears not too busy to heed,
for these disasters give plenty of warning.
Some Got Out in Time.
Plenty of shrewd men withdrew their
business from the Maverick Bank year be-
fore its failure, seeing the trend of its affairs
and plenty more might have known it, if
they had not been busy eating weekly club
dinners and going to club suppers dipping
into politics, getting up church festivals,
having o little company at home evenings
and taking little pleasure trips South,
while SO engrossed between times trying to
make little more money, they couldn't
look after the safety of what they had As
for you and your kind, if one rose from the
dead to warn you, you would only take it
for nightmare. The grounds of your con-
fidence are so conclusive no easy-going mind
can resist them. Isn't So and So one of the
bank officers, and didn't you know his folks
when you were boy, and wasn't his father
one Of the first members of the Missionary
Board and founder of the horticultural
society, dying in the faith after two years.
paralysis? Doesn't he make up the choir
and church expenses out of his own pocket
and the bank money? Hasn't lie given
the suburb where he lives a drinking
fountain and started a young mems club, an
electric railway, and a lecture course which
other citizens pay for while he takes the
credit? Hasn't So and So, another director,
just built fine house on Expensive avenue,
costing $685. 900, and paid $4,000 for turn
out
Thankful to BE on the Same World.
A man must be solid to do things like
t,a% 9oo1 a. H..
mess in the same bank with men who spend
so freely. It is difficult to doubt the safety
of bank which has such sheets of plate
glass, such heavy carved mahogany and
ornate and artistic bronze screens. Bright
gold might suggest too much outlay of the
precious metal which should be in the bank
vaults, but bronze and dead gilt are as
suring. 1t is not in modern man to ques-
tion the security of bank which grants ac-
commodations with go little embarrassing
inquiry, and furnishes depositors such
handsome check books with their names in
gold on the covers, and such exquisite tool
ing that they are quite souvenirs. What
mortal in sympathy with his time can resist
persuasion that such business is immutable
and safe as the gates of Thebes? You be-
Heve, therefore it is so.
There may be also that other unanswer-
abb reason for confidence that the man.
age; is the son of his father, who stands
high in the regard of the community. It
has been hitherto considered unfortunate
that the greatest men have left no son to
their inheritance of trust and gratitude.
But a man is also the son of his mother,
and the grandson of parents perhaps less
capable than the shrewd sire whom .hard
circumstances wrought and developed.
Where Heredity Doesn't Count.
And how about those passages in every
life, which men owe only to themselves,
when the base in their nature held sway in
stead of the better part? The best men
know too well how nearly ut times they
have come to being the despised of all men
instead of honored, and how if the son is
the child Of these periods, and wears the
ears of the faun instead of the crest of Jupi-
ter? Also, the best of fathers find that bit
ter truth. that their sons are more children
of their century and of their world than of
their sires, and the training of good mothers
is set at naught beside the influence of the
little society, be it of Gramercy Park or of
Farrowdale which makes the chi!dren's
world, and molds them to its likings. How
many of the best families have to realize |
this terrible truth with bitterness which |
is untathomable
Men ask themselves sadly, how am to |
teach my son prudence, ,self-restaipt, and the |
honor which is the pith of honesty in |
society which compels them to extravaganza
as the price of its liberation, and which de- |
fes self-indulgence and proceeds on showy |
easy reckoning which takes everything for |
granted if names and appear ances are ac-
ceptable? A parent NAV be willing to rive |