Jasper County Democrat, Volume 10, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 December 1907 — SUPPOSE? [ARTICLE]

SUPPOSE?

Suppose when the present financial stringency first struck the country the democratic newspapers and the democratic politicians had assumed the same attitude that republican politicians and republican newspaper assumed in 1893? What do you think would have been the result? Honestly and candidly you know that not a solitary bank in the country would have been able to withstand the rush of frightened depositors. Everyone of them would have bad to close their doors and the greatest panic and business collapse the world bad even seen would have resulted.

Every reader knows how the republican papers heralded in blackfaced type the failure of even the smallest banks in 1893, as “Another Bank Gone Democratic,” and the politicians of that party and many of the business men stood about the street corners or in front of their places of business and with long-drawn faces prated about bow everything was going to the dogs, and secretly hoped that it would. All knew that the financial depression then bad started under a republican administration, and, that if blame was attached to the administration, that the republicans were the party at fault. Yet in every way possible they did everything they could to irritate and exaggerate the situation and prolong it. In patriotic contrast to the attitude of the republican press and republican politicians of that day has been the position taken by democratic papers and democratic politicians in the present financial situation. Scores of banks have gone under, manv with millions owing to depositors, and yet the nt wspapers have kept the worst from their readers and did everything possible to bring about normal conditions once more. In this they have been assisted by the democrats from the highest to the lowest. Instead of demanding their balances at the banks, as many republicans did in the panicy times of ’93, and thus aggravating a bad situation, they have gone quietly about their business and assisted in bringing back better conditions by drawing as little currency out of the banks as possible. It is to be hoped that our Republican friends will profit by this example of patriotism on the part of the democrats of the country, and will never again try to make a bad matter worse, as they v did in ’93, that they may profit politically over the downfall of the business of the country.