That the “Object-Lesson” was intended for the West and South is evidenced by the records. Out of 169 banks failing from March 5 to August 4, five only were in Eastern States, forty-eight in Southern and 151 in Western states—Dunn’s Report.
Dunn’s Report for July 21, 1893, says: “A large proportion of the suspended Colorado banks and mercantile institutions will pay in full and resume business, inability to borrow money on or sell ample collateral alone being the cause of the Denver banks closing their doors.”
No doubt the panic reached proportions not at first intended by the National Bank Presidents and threatened their own financial standing, as Mr. Branch suggests is the case in time of panics. But they had a remedy, no doubt decided upon beforehand. While they refused credit to the Southern and Western banks, they issued Clearing House certificates to the extent of $63,152,000 to themselves, an act which was in violation of the law.
There is so much evidence obtainable to the effect that the National Bankers are guilty of every count in the indictment contained in the Panic Bulletin that a book could be filled with it.
In a speech in the United States Senate August 25, 1893, Senator David B. Hill, referring to the bankers, said: “They inaugurated the policy of refusing loans to the people even upon the best security, and attempted in every way to spread disaster broadcast throughout the land. These disturbers—the promoters of public peril—represented largely the creditor class, the men who desire to appreciate the gold dollar in order to subserve their own selfish interests, men who revel in hard times, men who drive harsh bargains with their fellow-men regardless of financial distress. It is not strange that the present panic has been induced, intensified and protracted by reason of these malign influences. Having contributed much to bring about the present exigency, these men are now unable to control it. They have sown the wind, and we are now all reaping the whirlwind together” (Congressional Record, Vol. XXV, Part I, p. 865).
August 8, 1893, Senator Teller said, in a speech in the United States Senate:
“It is the height of folly that this is a panic caused by distrust of the currency.” On the 29th of the same month the Senator from Colorado, referring to the Williams House meeting of Secretary Carlisle with the New York National Bank Presidents, said: “It is a most remarkable interview; it will go far to support the charges which I am not going to make on my own authority, but which I am going to make upon the authority of others, that this panic is a bankers’ panic, brought by the action of the New York banks, and brought about for distinct purposes, which purposes were practically avowed on the 27th of April. The same things have been reiterated by the financial papers, and the policy is still continued up to the present hour. It had two objects in view. One was to secure from the United States a large issue of bonds, and the other to secure the repeal of the much-abused Sherman law.”
The records show that the bankers accomplished both of these objects. They secured the repeal of the purchasing clause, and afterward the issue of $262,000,000 in bonds.
In the same speech Senator Teller said: “There are many banks in the West, and some that I know of, which shut their doors because they could not draw the money that they had on deposit in New York” (Congressional Record, Vol. XXV, Part I, p. 1022).