Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1919-12-30
COLLECTION OF ! .URR KILLED ARE ! l REIvED BY DEAl
ger in Manhattan Recalls Famous Old
 Duel

f,w York, Dec. 27.-Recollec- Ts of the political feud which kted in the duel between Alex
 M Hamilton and Aaron Burr at 1aawken, N. J., in 1904 have .sa revived here by the merger nc Manhattan company and the @ hants' National banks, two of N,oldest financial institutions in Ns York. ' pr more than 115 years the two have dwelt side by
 at 40 and 42 Wall street and lB82 they united in the construe- B of the new building which they Es occupied jointly ever since. Ehe union of these once rival in- a8utions the metropolis loses .pabiy, the last tangible trace of # most famous early American 8agonisms. Although the banks :nselves have long since "buried .8hatchet" there was time when l1 were neighbors in name only S'hen the mere suggestion of
 X r getting together would have sl dismissed as unthinkable. Burr was elected to the New sk legislature in 1797 when the
 Ee and city were controlled by milton as the leader of the fed Lists. Hamilton had helped to
 Rblish in New York a branch of Bank of the United States. Is was then the only banking in Eution in New York city. The
 titution was controlled, so the bublicans lead by Burr alleged, the federalists, who were charg-
 with using their financial pow for the furtherance of the fed llict cause.
 The political ambitions of the tile intriguer" at Albany, caused n to desire to break through the nking ring which barred all an- federalist banks from New
 rk, and his opportunity came
 1799. In that year he intro ced a bill in the legislature which thorized the granting of char : to a company which was os- lsibly to be formed for the pur- SC of improving the water SUD- 7 of New York city. The city, en with 3 population of 50.000, d just passed through a severe laemic and Burr's project quick
 met with popular approval. The Il object of the Manhattan com ny was to cupply republicans bh the sinews of war.
 merchants, it was
 d, were discriminated against by , federalist bank, whereas, their leralist competitors were freely :omodated when they sought lds to carry on their business.
 e adroitnesc which Burr elh- wed to obtain a charter was em- asized by the fact that the fed ,lists had a majority in the legis ure. Hence the commission of , word bank from the Manhat- l company.
 The petition for the proposed ater works" company stated 1t as twas not known how .ch capital would be required, } projectors did net want to risk lure by a deficiency of capital, i, therefore, asked authority to
 SC $2,000,000. Inserted in the arter was q provision of Burr's 1t "the surplus capital may be
 ployed in any way mot incon- tent with the laws of the con- tuition of the United States or
 the state of New York"
 The senate and house passed the expeditioucly, few members en taking the time to read it, l none, except those who were
 the secret suspecting it's real rpose. Burr's manipulation of
 S affair won him the favor of few republican leaders but cost n his former prestige, "the peo- at that time having a chronic ejudicc against banks Four ars later, however, Hamilton, un- Hing to yield the slightest de- ae to his opponent, organized the National, which open
 for business next door to the
 TT institution.
 The Manhattan company's ac- Il achievement in the water
 rks field consisted of the sinking
 a well 25 feet in diameter, in
 at is now downtown New York. e water was pumped to a nearby and thence distributed ,ough wooden pipes to a few lsumers. The dam and other ojects provided in the charter
 re never constructed. Occac- lally excavators in lower Man ttan, have dug up pieces of hol- ved-out logs, mementos of a gen ation long post.