The Progress., 1893-09-30
A RADICAL REMEDY.
REV. THOMAS DIXON, J2., ON THE
FINANCIAL PANIC.

Production and the Breathing of a Soul
Into Society.
New YORK, Sept. 24.-Rev. Thomas
Dixon, Jr., continued in his pulpit in
sion of the Panic-Its Causes and Cure"
The subject of today's discourse was the
permanent cure of panics. He main
tains that there can be no cure for
the commercial crisis save in a new
social order. which fact is evidenced in
the uniformity with which panics oc
cur under all forms of government, un-
der all conditions of population, under
all systems of banking, under all polite
al parties: also evidenced in the fact
of the practical anarchy and failure of
our present competitive system of COM
merce. He argues for wider social CO.
operation in production and pleads for
the breathing of a soul into society. The
texts chosen were the same as those used
for the past two sermons-the sermon,
in fact, being a continuation of the for
mer discourses:
Thou hast taken usury and increase, and
thou hast greedily gained of thy neighbors by
extortion and hast forgotten me, saith the Lord
God.
As the partridge sitteth on eggs and hatcheth
them not, so he that getteth riches and not by
right shall leave them in the midst Of his days
and at his end shall be fool.
They shall cast their silver into the streets,
and their gold shall be removed their silver
and their gold shall not be able to deliver them
in the day of the wrath of the Lord.
The discussion of the problems of
usury, of extOrtion, of the money power
and its periodical panic must go deeper
than the surface if we would find the
real causes of the phenomena, and like
wise we must go deeper than the surface
if we are to discover the cure for the
evils. Unquestionably the nation has
been in convulsions. tits important that
certain remedies shall be applied to re-
lieve this state of intense excitement.
These temporary and partial remedies
we tried to discuss in part last Sunday
morning, but a remedy applied for a
condition of convulsions can not reach
the seat of the constitutional trouble.
We must go beyond the developments
of pain for the moment and discuss the
hidden disease which is sapping the con-
stitution of the patient. To attempt a
cure of the financial panic by tinkering
with our currency law or with our bank
ing law is to attempt to cure an earth
quake by dropping a pill in the crater of
Vesuvius. The difficulty is more than
on the surface. The evil is inherent in
the very custom of society itself.
1t is both useless, illogical and unfair
to rail against the rich when we are our
selves consenting to the social order
which creates their excessive wealth
They are the normal and perfectly nat
ural product of the social system in
which we live. They are no worse than
the social order that produces them,
that fosters them and that adds daily to
their power. If the system of competi-
tive economies and self interest which
we have erected into a science called
modern political economy be right, they
are right, and the evils incident to their
power are without remedy other
words, there can be no real cure of COM
mercial panics save in new social or
der.
First-This fact is made evident from
study of the history of the nine great
commercial crises of the nineteenth cen
tury. A study of these great panics by
the impartial historian reveals the facts
so recently brought out by the treatise
of Mr.. PARLIAMENTARY, that indus
trial crises and the evils which they Gre
ate are:
/. Entirely independent of the ques-
ton of population, whether rapidly in
creasing or stationary. This is shown
from the study of the history of Great
Britain and France and America, in
which panics have occurred under every
condition of population, when over
crowded, when decreasing, when in
creasing under normal conditions.
9. That the commercial crisis is en-
tirely independent of all the forms of
government, whether they are despotic,
monarchic or republican. The panic
comes to imperial Germany, to England,
to republican France, to democratic
United States, with equal impartiality.
g. That the commercial crisis is en-
tirely outside of the question of the ex
tent of territory of the nation and the
uninhabited land available for its peo-
pie. The United States, Austria, the
Argentine Republic and indeed all the
undeveloped nations of the world have
proved themselves equally vulnerable
in this century to the most violent forms
of commercial depression.
A. That the panic is Independent of a
restricted or inflated currency, of gold
standard or silver standard, evidenced
in the fact that they have occurred
under each condition of currency with
equal violence.
5. That panics are entirely independent
of any special system of banking, the
soundest methods doing no more than
limit the range of the calamity, the least
sound doing no more than extend it.
There never was, for instance, time in
which the banking of America was upon
''sounder" basis, and in this crisis our
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