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# THE FIDELITY SAVINGS BANK
would have cried, who are now trying to find
out of how much they have been robbed. But
it is just such blind confidence in a manage-
ment that breeds scoundrels. The best of men,
because they are strongly trusted, are strongly
tempted, and stand in the greater need of that
moral defence which constant watchfulness
and publicity only can give.
How serious this blow will prove to business
interests, it is difficult to say. Apparently,
Mr. Morton had borrowed over $1,000,000,
using fraudulent certificates as security. No
doubt other large sums had been borrowed
upon the genuine stock, which was held worth
over $1,000,000 on the very morning of
the exposure, and which nobody could sell
at any price that night. These large loans,
for which the security has suddenly vanished,
may cause some trouble. But the worst effect
will be the grave distrust which must be pro-
duced where Mr. Morton was held so high.
Destruction of confidence, at a time when
confidence is peculiarly needed, involves more
than the loss of one or two millions. The
event will bear good fruit, however, if it
teaches men in positions of trust to beware of
gambling in stocks. Like many others, it
seems, Mr. Morton had faith in the coal roads,
and lost largely in Philadelphia and Reading,
and his earliest fraud was prompted by over-
whelming losses on that stock. We shall have
a better chance of financial recovery when it
comes to be a rule rigidly observed by men
intrusted with the care of the money of others,
and rigidly enforced by stockholders, that no
man in that position ought ever to indulge in
speculation. This is not the first, nor by many
will it be the last, of frauds arising from the
same cause.
The fall of the Fidelity Savings Bank has
not been wholly unexpected. Though it has
made a long struggle, the persistency of the
run upon it, which began after the failure of
the State Savings Bank, clearly indicated a
general impairment of confidence. The capital
was only $200,000, but it had a surplus of
$98,000 more in October last, and was espe-
cially well known because of the activity of
its President. Its fall is not likely to cause
serious disturbance at Chicago, as it will hardly
occasion surprise, but every such event tends
immediately to increase the drain upon New-
York banks, and; more broadly, to intensify
the distrust and apprehension which make a
revival of business so difficult.
The one thing unquestionably solid in our
condition, is the enormous productivenesss of
our industry. The great crops will not take
to themselves wings, and vanish in a night.
The yield of petroleum and of the precious
metals does not cease, nor the foreign demand
for our wheat and corn, cotton, provisions,
and manufactured products. Faith that the
country will finally recover, in spite of all its
losses, is not ill-founded, for it is a faith in
the great resources of the land, and in the en-
terprise, invention and industry of the people.
The recovery will be the more sure and steady
when it comes, and will be the less liable to
interruption from startling failures or shocking
disclosures, for the removal of crippled firms,
the closing of banks which have lost public
confidence, and the exposure of men who have
abused great trusts. Above all, it will be a
more steady and sure recovery if the people
first learn that the best of men need constant
support and publicity in the management of
fiduciary trusts, and that the corporation which
closes its books to the public is presumably
unsound.
