The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1893-05-19
KANSAS AND HER BANKS.

| From he FL Dorado Times,
Within the last three weeks there has
prevailed at all the monetary centers of
this country a strained condition of fin
ances that has created doubt and uncer-
tainty in all business circles and many
suspensions of large industrial concerns
have taken place.
The reasons assigned for these failures
were the impossibility of raising money
on paper or collateral, owing to the
stringency of the market. The suspense
of the delayed action of the new admin
istration upon its promised tariff changes
and the continuance of the monthly sill
yer purchase of 4, 800, 900 ounces, are the
factors of disturbance that have called a
halt in all business enterprises that is
alarming in its threauenings. Our peo-
pie wanted political change and they
are now..enjoying their luxury at an enor-
nous cost.
While the east has been so far the
great sufferer, and the west has shown
up in stronger financial light than in any
previous comparison of former financial
tlurrIes, yet the dependence of one part
Of the country on the other part Is so
marked that now the western trade
centers feei the effects of the troubled
wave and banking accommodations have
been sharply curtaied. This sudden
snap has forced into the hands of the
note brokers of Chicago and Kansas
City, Mo-, the paper of some of the most
prominent business men of those cities.
and in hunting up an outside market for
its sale, the brokers have discovered
from the reports to the comptroller of
the currency and the different state
bank commissioners that the country
banks of Kansas have more idle funds on
hand than the banks Of any other of the
western agricultural state.
During the past week the banks in
this city have had offered them the pa
per of some of the leading citizens of
the cities before mention. but have de-
clIned purchasing not believing it con-
servativs to make loans of this nature.
This is a wonderful turn in events, that
Kansas, the lately despised and rejected,
should become the present chief coroner
stone OF the western financial structure.
Yet. true 1T is today, and past all dis
pute or controversy.
The banks in FL Dorado have nearly
500, 600 OF deposits, 10 per cent Of which
are owned by our farming people. When
we realize that this remarkable showing
has simply been the product of the past
three years Of fair prices for Kansas pro-
ducts, we can form some estimate of the
wonderful natural resources of this
great state whose fertility In three short
years has wiped out the result Of previ-
Gus crop failures. the speculatiOns of the
boom and the decline in personal prop
erty values that altogether were endured.
If our credit today was not shaded 10y
our present unfortunate political status
we would be proudly marching at the
head of the procession leading all our
negnboring states.
Let the benign rule of our past COM
mon sense again return in matters polit-
zeal and the Republican party be reStor-
ed TO the old command, and there viii
dawn upon Kansas such a state OF gen
erai prosperity as VIII discount in adj
vance the glowing expectations Of the
final millennium. IL II. GARDNER.