The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1922-07-19
With COUNTRY BANKS ON STRIKE
COULD WALL Street live?
New York Banks Were Saved by
Withholding the Peoples Money.
What If the Interior Banks With
held Money From New York?
(By CHARLES Albert Collman)


Late one November evening, chill,
dark and unforgettable, / felt the fin
ancial district of New York. In the
windows seemed blac kand gaping
holes. From the bay, a shuddering
wind swept up Manhattan Island,
that struck one Of the bone. It was
the kind of night when men raise the
collars of their ulstcrs we'll above
their ears and hurry homeward, CRATE
full at the thought of warmth and
comfort.
Attempting to cross Wall Street, I
was stopped by long line of men in
single file. They stood there shivcr-
ing, their haggard faces nipped with
cold. Some sat on camp stools. A
few were drinking coffee from bottles
and munching sandwiches. They were
about two hundred in number, some
old and gray-haircd, many young in
years, down to the age of boyhood.
This file Of humanity stretched from
Broadway, opposite Trinity church.
yard, along Wall Street to point
between the offices of j. p Morgan
and Company and the National City
Bank it ended before the doors Of
large white building on the south
side of the historic stree.
1t was then nearing eight o'clock.
The people had been posted there
since the close of banking hours that
afternoon. With sullcn dctcrmina-
tion, they were going to remain sta
toned on the sidewalks for the next
ID hours, sleepless in the terrible cold
of that November night, so they could
be the first in line when the doors of
the Trust Company of America would
open at 10 o'clock the following morn
ing.
1t was a night that had succeeded
one of the grim days Of the Rich Mems
Panic. For weeks, dense crowds had
filled Wall and Broad streets, ner-
vous, curious and questioning. They
had packed the high steps of the Sub
Treasury Building in their anxiety.
The district had, in fact, been black
with people eager to ditness one of
the most remarkable demonstrations
of modern times--the greatest and
longest bank run that has yet occur
red in financial history.
Stretching patience and endurance
to the breaking point, these night
watchers were hoping to get back the
money they had placed in Wall
Street institution.
They little knew that they were
only the pawns of great financiers who
had foresecn an emergency.
Few fthem dreamed that the eX-
traordinary scene in which they play
ed their parts, had been staged within
the walls of powerful banking houses.
For more than year, furious
gamble had been in progress. Now
the greatest Of all the gamblers, the
men who controlled Wall Street, were
making the country pay the costs Of
all the dreadful hazards that had
been taken.
The financial catastrophe had been
precipitatcd by wealthy speculators
A crowd of copper men had attempt
ed disastrous corner in United Cop
per shares. AS fast as they garner
ed the stock, they put it up as collat-
eral for call loans in a chain of banks
and trust companies identified with
their operations. Another coterie of
brokers had cornered the stock of the
Tennessee Coal, Iron & Railroad Com
pany, IN order to get control Of this
corporation, which was an iron, coal
and steel property extending through
Alabama, Tennessee and Georgia.
Speculation Ties Peoples Money
The brokers succeeded in their cor
ner in Il. c. & | But, instead of sue
cess, it spelt their ruin. In buying
up all the stock in the market, they
had run the price up to $166 share.
On this stock they had obtained from
complaisant bankers loans of public
money deposited in Wall Street insti-
tutions, aggregating 100000. This
immense loan was now frozen
credit. The brokers were unable to
sell the Tennessee Company as they
had planned. Neither could they pay
back their loans. Nor could the banks
get back their money. They did not
dare to liquidatc the collateral of
Tennessee stock, for had they tried it,
the price Of r.. G. & l. would have
dropped to almost nothing, and drag
ged the stock market down with it,
A deadlock now cnsucd in Wall
Strcet--a period of uneasy waiting,
punctuated by dismal forebodings.
In the process of building up cor
ners in copper, coal, steel and steam
ship stocks, there had been a period
of wild speculation. In the nine
months since the beginning Of the
year, 15G,791 ,017 shares of stock had
been traded in on the New York
Stock Exchange, which represented an
actual outlay Of $12,233, ,942.3177