The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1914-07-31
GREATEST PANIC WORLD EVER KNEW E WAS THAT OF 1907
It Came Under a Republican Administration After Years Of RepubIicanism.
Efforts to Reproduce It This Year Fail Because of Uni- versaI Prosperity.

Washington, D. G. July S1.--Re- publican politicians in Congress. aid- ed by Theodore Roosevelt. are con tinuinR their efforts to reap political Advantage by plungtng the business world into panic. Comparison of the business and politics of 1907 un- dor Roosevelt with the business and politics of 1914 under Wilson there-. fore, becomes timely and pertinent Tn the present year. numerous and Hconvincing evidences are at hand i'm dtcating that a period of unprece- denfed .prosperfty has begun. This is true, Notwithstanding the campaign to destroy confidence and para1yze business jointly waged for the last Jew months by the Republican parti- sans and their wall street allies.
 There are many reasons for the en- souragine outlook now. Not the least of them lies in the fact that the new currency law was put onto the stat ute books by the Wilson administra- tion. This law was enacted within year after President Wilson took office. After the panic of 1907. what was done to fortify against panics during the six years that the Re- publicans remained in power Scarcely a calamity speech is made in Congress which does not assert that and Democratic rule the reverse. They
 make loud ado in comparing 1914 with 1894. Not Q word do they say. however about 1907.
 The foremost Republicans author ity upon matters financial in 1907 was the then Senator Nelson w Aldrich. Of Rhode Island Aldrich, was high priest of Republican tariff and dnan- ciaI doctrine. Not only that, he was the leader of his party in Congress. On February 10. 1908, delivering set speech in the Senate Aldrich describ- ed the panic of 1907 as the most acute. and disastrous in the history of the country. He said:
 MT. President the financial crisis from which the country has just ious panic in October was the most acute and disastrous in its immediate consequences Of any that has occur red in the history of the country. Nothing but the heroic measures ta- ken by the representatives, of the great business and financial interests of the country acting in co-operation with the secretary of the treasury prevented a total collapse of private credit and a disastrous destruction of all values It is impossible to com ceive, much less to measure the 1oss-. es which would have resulted from such 8, calamity. The country was saved by the narrowest possible mar gin from an overwhelming catastro- phe. whose bhghting effect would nave DS6n 1elLs ln every nOuS6nO4Q. lA A total collapse was avoided, but the shrinkage in values of securities and property and the losses from in- jury to business resulting from and incidental to the crisis amounted to thousands of millions of 1oIlars.'
 Prior panics in the United States,
 he continued, had been panics in which serious distrust existed in the public mind as to the security of the whole or some portion of the coun- try's currency.
 ssThe panic Of 1907,n he went on
 was not. either in it's inception or it's progress, a currency pAnic. in the. sense to which have alluded. Our currency, in character was beyond question.
 stNeither the strength Of the mone- tary system nor the extraordinary ef- forts which were made to avoid the serious result prevented a general suspension of payments by national banks with most depIorable and fNr- reaching results. This suspense com menced in New York on October 2e and was followed promptly by sus- pension of banks in Chicago and oth- CT localities. The issue of clearing house certif1cates followed in most oS the pf1ncipaI cities.
 "A complete disruption of ex- changes between cities and communs lities throughout the country took place. It is impossible to estinatei the losses which are inflicted by this suspension of payments by the banks. and the resultant interruption of ex- IschanBes There was financial em- barrassment on every hand, and an timpossibiHty of securing the proper funds to move crops or carry on the important business of the country The suspension and Encouragement eof business operations threw thou- sands of men out of employment and reduced the wages of the employed 2 Mark you, this occurred after ten lcontinuous years of Republican rule,
 with Republican President in the White House.
 l Senator Aldrfch has painted the pie
 tllre com plete1y and accurately. A
 mass of corroborative testimony is
 available, however.
 Leslie M. Shaw, former Governor ! of Iowa, who then had recently retir-
 ed as Secretary of the Treasury. in a
 public speech declared that the pan | ic of 1907 was generally conceded I to have been the worst that the world has witnessed
 Tn December, 1907, on December
 16, to be exact, Senator Benjamin F
 T1llman, of South Carolina, made a
 speech yet rem membered by his col l leagues who were in Congress seven years ago. Tillnlan drove to the | point in his usual picturesque and di-
 rect fashion. He exhibited in the l Senate samples of the scrip" which
 passed for money in many p&rts of | the United States during October and | November, 1907. These samples of | scrip were reproduced in the Con gressionaI Record.
 "Here is a fine looking specimen 9
 Senator Tillman cried, exhibiting a
 Southern clearing house certificate to l the Senate. ''It looks like what you
 people call Confederate money. with 1 which was very familiar when was | a boy-shin plaster-and yet it was issued by national banks.
 I Among the many such samples thus put in evidence by the South Caro- i lina Senator was little slip of paper ! typical of the kind of money current on the Pacific Coast that year. It was l called Lumber Money" The lum-