Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1908-01-29

low the panic with he usual legisla-
tion and passed bills to recharter
the bank. Tyler vetoed them and
set his face against the policy which
Harrison undoubtedly would have
pursued. Until the last few months
there have been few men In public
life brave enough to face the ghost
establishment Of central govern
ment bank. ~s..-
The smaller panics of the ante
bellum period were all followed by
changes in banking and coinage laws.
The civil war produced a financial
| panic five years long, which was
constantly rejecting itself in flnan-
cial legislation. The "greenbacks"
were of that vintage. The present
national bank system was born in
1858 OF the brain Of Salmon P.
Chase, Lincoln's Secretary Of the
Treasury. The advance Of gold over
the legal tender notes caused wild
and disastrous gold speculation dur
ing the war. This became so bad
that after the sharp panic of 1864
Congress decided to stop gold specu-
lation. Therefore on June II it
passed a bill prohibiting contracts
for gold for future delivery. On
that day gold was worth $195. BY
June 80 it had gone up to $3.50, the
law having had precisely the oppo-
site effect from the intention of it's
lsponsors. 1t was repealed on July
Q, after having been in effect fifteen
days.
The State banks were subject to
as many different systems Of law as
there were States, but in almost
every State there were wildcat
banks at one time or another. These
issued money without limit. Every
man carried in his pocket "detec-
tor" which was a printed list of
newspapers each day carried long
lists of bank note quotations, for
one could not tell whether five dol
lar bill was worth five dollars or
Ave cents until he looked up that
particular banks rating in a relia-
BILE list of quotations. The tax of
10 per cent on the issue of bank
notes by State banks put an effec-
tual end to the "wild-catters," al
though the constitutionality Of the
act is still doubted by some of the
leading lawyers of the country. This
tax was imposed at the time of the
passage OF the national bank act 10
1868.
The panic of 1873 Is associated
closely with certain bit of legisla-
tion sometimes called the "crime Of
'73." At any rate, the coinage laws
were changed in that year and silver
has never been the same since. The
panic of 1884 was attempted to be
met by tariff bill, the people then
believing in commercial rather than
strictly financial remedies. The
panic Of 1890 caused another change
] in the coinage laws and the silver
purchasing clause of the Sherman
act was put on the statute books.
| The much greater panic OF 1893
caused the calling of an extraordf-
nary session Of Congress to repeal
the same purchasing clause. These
| two bits Of legislation awakened,
| the whole country to talking Of fl
| nancial legislation and that interest
| was famed into white heat in the
campaign OF 1896. The Republicans,
helms successful In that campaign on
a bi-metallic platform leaning to-
| ward the gold standard, placed a
law on the statute books which only
partly pleased the extreme gold par
ty, but which was enough to settle
the question.
~. - f
Since that time the need for cur
rency reform has been talked of In
| every Congress. The last Congress
passed the Aldrich bill without SO
much as causing ripple on the sur
face of becalmed sea OF public
opinion. But the necessary quality
OF elasticity In our system of cur
rency is still lacking and the trou-
Bile has been recently demonstrated.
Everybody Is now awake to the fact
that something is wrong with fnan-
cial conditions when the most pros
porous country In the world at the
| most prosperous stage OF Its whole
history can go to bed at night with
| plenty OF money for every purpose
| and wake up in the morning with
out enough to pay car fare.
sss
The{ business of the modern world
must he conducted on credit basis.
There Sis far more business than