Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 3.djvu/493

Rh call it a good one? If it be a bank of issue, its notes must be well secured and surrounded with such guarantees of convertibility that they may pass throughout the land without discount and without danger of loss to anybody. Second: Its deposits must be well secured by reserves, so as to be reasonably safe. Third: Its discount and loan business must be conducted without extortion, so as to afford reasonable accommodation to the business community. When the banks of the country possess these qualities, they are a blessing to the business community worth untold millions year after year. When the banks do not possess these qualities they are the source of infinite distrust and restlessness; for then business walks as if on a thin crust of ice, in danger of breaking through every moment. You all know this. Now compare the State-bank system as it existed before the war with our national-bank system as it exists now, and what do you find? Under the State-bank system we have had partial and general suspensions and breakdowns of banks in 1809, 1814, 1825, 1834, 1837, 1839, 1841 and 1857, resulting in aggregate losses of hundreds of millions to billholders and depositors, and the most disastrous confusion in the business of the country. Our National banking system has now been in existence about fifteen years. It has passed through a financial crisis more distressing perhaps than any that ever swept over this land; and what has been the result? Not a single holder of a national-bank note has lost a single cent, and the whole loss suffered by depositors in national banks during the whole period of their existence, including these five terrible years of collapse and distress, amounted to about $6,000,000, a loss less than that suffered by depositors in State and savings banks this year alone. These are facts which cannot be disputed. The national banks, have, therefore, successfully stood a trial which no banking system in this