The morning journal-courier., 1908-01-01
CAUSE OVERLOOKING
Comptroller Ridgely Gives Out Statement Dealing With
 1907 Conditions.
REACTION WAS INEVITABLE
Duty of the Banks to Restore Busi- ness to Normal Con-
 ditionS.

Washington, Dec. 31--W. B. Ridgely, comptroller of the treasury, to-day gave out statement dealing largely with financial conditions during the year l9O7 in which he says that "The conditions which made this crisis pos- sible are the accumulated composite whole world has been overtrading and expanding and nowhere has it been more rampant than in the United States. The reaction was inevitable, and though it might not have taken the form of bank panic had we been currency system as We should have, the time has come when some or all must pay for our over indulgence"
 Tt is the duty of the banks" says the comptroller, Ito restore business to normal conditions by resuming their functions as promptly and as fully as possible. Fortunately there Is not only the strongest desire and disposition on the part of the banks to do this, but conditions are such as to make it com- paratively easy, and to lead us to ex- pect a much more prompt recovery than has followed other similar finan- cial crises"
 The reports to the comptroller show that the reserves in the central reserve cities were but 22.2 per cent. against the legal requirement of 25 per cent. The forty reserve cities show s4.27 per cent, of legal reserve, or almost the full legal minimum. while their total cash means are 26.53 per cent. of their deposits. Of the forty cities. twenty enc show legal reserves above 25 per cent, while ten of them show over 30 per cent. of legal reserve and all but eight of them show more than 25 per cent. of total cash means.
 The largest reserves are in the Texas cities, Galveston and San Antonio, showing over 3S per cent of legal re- serve and Galveston over IS per cent of total cash means.
 'The returns as tabulated by states are also significant, and reassufiny as to the general conditions. There is not | one state which does not show an ex- cess of reserve above legal require | ments of l5 per cent, and an average in ! legal reserve and total cash means on 1 December 2 above those held on Aug ust 22
 In the subdivision by states, the Pacific states show the largest Iesa' reserve, of 222S per cent, while the western states show tho largest cas- means, 32.l1 per cent. The most i'm. portant feature is that the readiust. ment of bank reserves has taken plac, with so few bank failures. Although the central reserve cities have receive, through imports of gold and otherwise certainly as much at $t5O,00O 900, prob ably considerably more, it has beer paid out and their reserves paid dowl to 22.2 per cent without the failure O q single bank in one of the central re serve cities
 Prom October 20 to December 3o 19O7 there have been but sixteen sus pensions or failures of national banks Of these, two have resumed and sev eral more should do so in the yer rear future and contrast this with in panic of 1893 when 160 national bank failed and of these 54 were never re openT The total number of nationa bank failures for 1907 is 21 and thi number has been exceeded many time