St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1896-01-13
THE PANIC,s BAD AFTERMATH.

OF commercial panic, is the demand
made upon men to pay their debts.
These panfcs always follow a period
OF speculation when men try to take
short cuts to wealth. A plethora of
money is the stimulant. 1t hunts in
vestment. The man with idle money
is as eager to get it to earning as is
the farmer with idle land and seed
to get his property to producing value.
Out Of this condition comes rise in
prices, gathering momentum as it runs.
making profits for those who buy and
sell, stimulating the desire for gain,
unbalancing judgment and making the
risky appear the safe. Confident Of a
steady increase, men plunge into debt,
investing their ready money and mort
gaging the future, relying on advanc-
ing prices to clear them. Custodians
of other peoples money, paying in
terest on it, forced to invest it to re-
coup the interest charges, catch the
fever. They put the deposits : into
assets that turn cut to be slow,
though lively at the time. Other
custodians speculate on their own &C
count with the money in their care,
thinking to replace it when they sell
at an advance. I'd
In time, and the faster the pace the
sooner the time, from some source,
rarely traceable, there comes a reac-
ton, doubt, loss of confidence 1t
is in the air. 1t is the turn of
the disease, perhaps. Men begin to
realize. They are anxious to sell 9th
ers want the money due them. The
row Of financial speculative bricks,
stood on end, is touched by distrust
and goes topping down all along the
line. The boom is ended, the bubble
bursted and settling day has come.
Then it is that, among the wreckage,
counts Of defalcations and so-called
embezzlements, others money used on
private account in speculation that
promised to be lucrative, but proves
disastrous. The succeeding years
show diminishing amount as the men
who have parted the first blow find
the load too heavy and succumb, until
normal conditions are reached and
average honesty prevails again.
This was so in the stock panic of
1884, when the total losses, classed
under the head of defalcations and
embezzlements, amounted to $25, 154, OOC
falling, in 1885, to $3,475,0 900. The stock
panic Of 1901 produced crop Of them
that reached S19,72O,249, as against
$S,622,956 in 1890, while the commercial
panic Of 1893 reckoned among it's dis
asters $40, $685. 92 from this source. The
full effect Of that panic was felt in
1894, when the largest total yet reached
was scored in the sum of $25, 234, H.
The settling process has gone steadily
on, and the year 1895 shows the re-
turn process with its $40, 423 POS These,
classified, show the following distribu-
ton: City and county officials, 50, 46S,-
6S6; banks, s2,17S,37S; frauds and for
geries, s1,913, 1894; agents, 81 ,2O9, 705; loan
associations, s137,415; postmasters,
s276O7; miscellaneous, $2,4S7,42 The
total for the eleven years, 1865,
amounts to s115 ,761.
The distribution by states Of the
losses of 1894 shows Nevada and South
Carolina as the only states exempt,
and Arizona as the only territory, even
Alaska showing UP with $4,000. Nat
urally, New York leads with 1914, 379,
and Tennessee unnaturally follows
next in line with s4,161, $780, these two
contributing over half of the whole.
Minnesota adds $685. to the sum
total, Wisconsin INDUCED in but $177,-
600, Iowa bore 81, Isl, 700 as her share,
South Dakota, with the Taylor case
yet uncovered, added $57, 1873, and North
Dakota gave only $4,000. The relation
of these losses to speculative eras and
boom collapses is shown by the fig
ures Of the decade ending with 1895,
preceded by the panic of 1884, and in
Guiding those of 1890 and 1893. These
are:
1885 .......... SO, AIS, 900 1892 . IS. S37. SAT
1895 ,..... $50 goo 1893 Is. 929, 6s2
1881 .......... 4, $50, 900 1894 25 234 l42
1883 2, 240, 900 1895 .... 10 423. 2O5
1889 . g. 600 OO0 $1,000
1890 ... g. 622 956I Total II
1891 ....... 10 72O 249 wears s115 412 761
So far as these losses come through
the negligence of inspection by direc-