Bank of Winton (Winton, NC)

Article Text

Why the Newspapers Refrain From Playing Up News of Fear-Crazy People Forcing Banks to Close People Make Panics When They Lose Their Heads — Panics Are Mass Cowardice, Easily Controlled and Subdued Where There Are Cool Heads and Leadership An Editorial By W. O. Saunders NEWSPAPERS are being condemned by a lot of well meaning people because they did not make big news of the large number of bank failures in North Carolina during the Christmas holidays. In suppressing the news of this latest outbreak of bank closings the newspapers have rendered their respective communities and the State a great service. For banks are wrecked by fear and newspaper scare heads calculated to throw fear into the hearts of large numbers of bank depositors could wreck every bank in North Carolina. Making big news of the bank failure in Ahoskie started an immediate run on the bank of Winton in a neighbouring town, forcing that fine, old, conservative and remarkably sound institution to close its doors for the protection of its depositors. As a matter of fact, a wave of fear from the crash of banks on the other side of the Chowan River broke on this side of the river last week and might have gathered momentum and grown into a panic but for the fact that the section's coolest and wisest heads saw what was coming, were prepared for it and quietly mobilized to combat it. And the newspapers helped the situation by refraining from printing some very interesting news. There was no panic in the Albemarle last week because it was licked before it got under way. And the newspapers played their part nobly by refusing to spread alarm. A panic is one of the easiest things in the world to lick if taken in time, for a panic is but mass cowardice and cowardice can always be licked if taken in hand before it runs amuk. But what usually happens when a panic appears is, people try to pooh pooh it and say that it doesn't exist. They kid themselves and everybody around them until the panic has gained such momentum that nothing can stop it. And some fine morning they find a frantic mob battering at the doors of their strongest banks and demanding more money than the banks are prepared to pay out at once. Banks are wrecked. Out of several thousand depositors a few hundred have got their money which they may hide in tin boxes or in old socks; but the vast majority of depositors have their savings tied up indefinitely, all business is disorganized, the buying power of the people diminished or destroyed, business houses crash, shops and factories are forced to suspend work, armies of people are thrown out of employment, real and personal property is thrown on the market in forced sales and the price of everything further depressed. If people would only stop to think they would not invite the risk of wrecking a bank for the sake of saving their own hides. Many a man unthinkingly fears that if his bank closes he will lose all. As a matter of fact he will do nothing of the sort. In many instances he will get all or most of it back. In the case of national banks depositors as a rule get back 80 to 90 per cent. The loss a depositor takes in leaving his money in a closed bank is far less than the loss he may have to take as a result of the upsetting of business and depression of property values that inevitably follows a bank failure. And when any large number of people take their money out of the fire and burglar proof vaults of their banks they are inviting an utter loss of their savings thru the possibility of fire or burglary. Desperate yeggmen and hold-up men are looking for communities in which large numbers of people are holding their money out of banks. Such communities attract thieves and murderers as surely as honey attracts flies. No stronger banks exist anywhere in North Carolina than the little group here in the Albemarle region. But if the panic that has siezed upon other parts of the State is permitted to sweep this section every bank in the Albemarle can be closed and the loss to agriculture, business and industry could run into far more millions than are represented by the liabilities of all the banks combined. To close any one of a number of banks in the Albemarle would precipitate a large number of business failures, throw hundreds of people out of employment, depress real estate and other values to a point from which they could not recover in a decade and would drive many citizens to suicide. It is a horrible picture. But panic is doomed when any considerable number of influential people, representing the best brains and capital of a city and its trade area see it coming, recognize it, square themselves for a fight and say with courage and decisiveness, We shall not lie down, We shall not run. A hundred and odd firms and individuals, imbued with the courage and leadership of the section's most courageous and resourceful citizen, Joseph P. Knapp, of Currituck, resolutely determining that there shall be no epidemic of fear and no panic in these parts can effectually stay off anything approaching hysteria and panic. It is just as simple as that. People make panics. When the leaders say there shall be no panic, that settles it. Yes, it is just as simple as that.