Book Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1912 edition. Excerpt: ... State Banking in Indiana, 1814-1873' By Logan Esarey, A.M., Research Fellow in American History. I INTRODUCTION The following paper deals with a phase of our national experience of which Americans are not proud. Successful banking on a comprehensive scale is not an old business. The present standard in banking has been reached after many experiments, but within a comparatively short time. One of these experiments was State Banking. It was tried during the first half of the nineteenth century. In all conventional pictures of state regulated banking, the "wildcat" banker from "Owl Creek" has usually been thought worthy of a full length portrait. Before approaching our subject seriously, we must blot his picture from our minds. He has his counterpart in every occupation. It would be just as fair to judge mining by the broker who peddles "gold bricks" or bogus mining stock, as to judge banking by the depredations of the "wildcat" banker. Every gainful occupation gives rise to a class of expert criminals peculiar to that calling. The "wildcat" banker belongs to the same class as the professional bank robber. Both are lawbreakers, and both violate the law with the same intent. There were not more "wildcat" bankers in the first half of the nineteenth century than there are defaulting cashiers today. Higher intelligence among the people and greater care on the part of law makers have driven the same class of men from the earlier to the more modern form of crime. The bankers of that era were as honest and competent, compared with the standards of the time, as are the bankers of today. But they had a much more difficult problem to solve. Banking flourishes in an orderly community. Steadiness and continuity in commerce make banking easy and safe....