The Yellowstone journal. [volume] (Miles City, Mont.) 1893-1901, 1893-07-29
Saturday. July %. 1893.
4 SATURDAY Sen NON.

The existing financial condition of the
country is teaching a lesson that no man
can disregard or fail to understand.
Panics and hard times have heretofore
swept the country. but never within the
memory Of the middle aged has every
body been forced to Appreciated the value
Of ready money and the full significance
OF credit. as they do to-day. As a mat
ter of fact. the whole country is to-da!
in a state of involuntary liquidation and
the sudden change from the easy going
times of the recent past to the matter OF
fact. unsympathetic and cold blooded
system nov forced upon us. is a wrench
that but few in the commercial world
can stand without effects more or less
painful or disastrous. 1t is not that
the country is any less prosperous or
the future any less promising than 1t
has been. On the contrary both pres
ent conditions and future prospects that
are usually relied upon as measures or
harbingers of prosperity would be es-
NSVultt vi tut SUD iosN u ~ I
not for the appalling fact that the people
one and all recalled upon suddenly and
peremptorially 10 pay their debts. The
great bridge Of credit over which the
people Of the country transported with
ease and sa ETY. fully eighty-ti per
ceneof their financial burdens. has col
lapsed and those who stood beneath 1t
gazing witt admiration al the strength
and utilit, Of the structure have le-
ceived the bulk Of the load upon their
own shoulders. So sudden has come
this change that many must go down
under it. The weak must show their
weakness where none are SO strong as to
be able to Withstand the shock without
a stagger. 1t has been reserved for the
people of this day and generation to
look upon IA spectacle such AS the world
has rarely if ever seen and which. all
things considered. certainly has no
prototype in the commercial history of
the world. We are not discussing
causes either political. social or financial
for the present condition of affairs.
Enough for participants TO know that it
exists that il is. in the terse language
of Mr.. Harrison-a condition and not a
theory that confronts us. and To limit
speculation to the probable outcome
rather than to waste breath in deter
mining the causes and fixing the respon-
sibility. The inexorahie logic of events
will do that for us.
But what of the future: Will mol the
lesson that Is heingtaueht be a valuable
one. l. il not good for the country to
learn. even at So severe a cost. that
credit Is a wild horse when being ridden
without Il curb and that debts must be
paid some time. The average citizen
listens with absolute indifference to
the assertion that the panic mas caused
a %shrinkage of over one thousand mil
ions Of dollars in the value IF the
stocks and securities of the country we'll
knowing that the bulk. if not all Of this
sum represents a profit as IL
legal and dishonest as the proceeds of a
burglary. Who cares if Geo. Gould's
holdings of stocks aud bonds are worth
to-day thirty or fifty millions less than
they We're a year ago: lie has got every
thing now that he had then. but the
process Of liquidation that the country
ia undergoing wipes ct the fictitious
values of his holdings and values them
at something near what they are actually
worth: and as il is with watered stocks.
~ is it and so will il be with watered
commercial regulations. They will all
be punctured by this sudden and pre-
emptory demand for settlement. but the
result will be hat when the storm is
over. though the commercial sea MAJ be
strewn with wrecks. there will yet re-
main ample sound timber out of which
To construct a new fleet of smaller but
safer vessels. with less sail aloft but
more ballast below. Should this come
about. there il no question but that the
lesson. severe as il is. will be beneficial.
What this country needs TO learn is the
value Of money and the uses and abuses
OF credit. and when it comes to pass that
a hoop-hurrah business man cannot
carry a fifty thousand dollar stock and
do an annual business of two hundred
thousand dollars. on a five thousand
dollar cash capital. commercial con-
ditions will be a long way safer thar they
have been.