Birmingham state herald., 1896-12-30
ASSAULTS. MIR. PICKLES.


 The line must be drawn. We do not see how the New York World can be al- lowed to go any further in it's reckless effort to account for the various bank failures other than by coming up like man and admitting that the wave of prosperity following in the wake of demo- cratic defeat is not the thing 1t had been recommended to be.
 For several weeks the World has been laundering about seeking a cause to charge the bank failures to. It could not charge them to the aglta tion of the silver question because the World is on record as announcing the silver agitation dead and with it the silver cause. It could not charge them to the threatened &C., ton of congress on the Cuban question, because the World was urging the recog- hilton of Cuban independence.
 The claim that threatened tariff legis- lation was responsible for the trouble would not lie. That action has been post poned. StilNthe banks continue to fail. To admit that these institutions were failing for lack of profitable business, the absence of which was traceable directly to the people who for lack of money are unable to buy and therefore deprived of the luxury of consuming would be too much like admitting that the democrats are right in their contentious, besides it would smack off calamity bowling, a thing that Mr Pulitzer greatly abom- mates.
 The facts, the cold facts, that banks are failing, and failing thick and fast, continue to stare the World in the face, and ungrateful. reckless paper that it is we find it as durnier resort charging the whole thing up to the incompetency and incapacity of the comptroller of the cur rency.
 The World goes so far in it's assaults upon little Jeemes Eckles, the wide mouthed speaker for the administration and all the Worlds kind of democrats in the late contest as to say: "These recent northwestern failures only reinforce the evidence of the fact that we need bet ter. more alert and larger-minded comp troller of the currency than any that we have ever had" Terrible. terrible as- sault is this upon the great fnancer whom Mr. Cleveland called from the wilds of the great state of Illinois to fill the important position of comptroller of the currency.
 As an evidence that the World should be promptly siienced we reproduce herein one of it's assaults on the comptroller of the currency in which it attempts to sad- dle upon him the cause of the recent bank failures:
 The bank failures in the northwest invite attention anew to the radical in- efficiency of bank supervision under our system.
 Theoretically, bank failures involving loss to anybody but stockholders are inn possible. Theoretically misconduct on the part of bank officers and neglect on the part of directors are securely and perfectly guarded against. In practical fact all these impossible things are of common occurrence.
 The trouble is not with the system but with it's administration We have never yet had a comptroller of the cur rency who really did his duty without fear or favor. We have never yet had one who was not appalled, by the dignity of the bank officers, whose conduct it was his business to scrutinize in order to keep them from stealing. We have never yet had one with strength of character enough to refuse to become the guest of the very men whose accounts it was his business to examine and whose conduct 1t was his duty to super wise.
 The national banks are generally sound and they are generally well con
  exercised over them. but to the integrity of their officers. Where they have been unsound the fault has been in nearly every case directly traceable to the com plaisance of the comptroller of the cur rency or to the incapacity or dishon- esty of his examiners.
 For tweny years hardly one bank has disastrously failed without fragrant and long continued misconduct on the part of it's officers which even tolerably honest and alert supervision would have discovered and arrested in time to avert the catastrophe. These recent north- western failures only reinforce the evl- dence of the fact that we need better, more alert and larger minded comptrol- Ter of the currency than any that We have ever had
 If the exaltation of the office and an increase of the salary attached to 1t will secure these ends. congress will rem der a public service by decreeing such changes.
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