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# THE SPECULATORS' PANIC.
Bryan's Commoner for November 1 sums up the present financial situation as follows:
The panic broke with full force on the whole country Monday, October 28. On Sunday bankers' conferences were held in every town in the United States. In order to prevent runs on banks the various financial institutions in different cities adopted the clearing house certificate plan, which plan was devised to keep business moving without requiring the banks to pay outall of their cash on hand. Cash payments were everywhere suspended although checks were honored to the extent of a small per cent of the individual's deposit. The newspaper dispatches of the day told this story: "New York bankers have engaged about $12,000,000 in gold in Europe. Bankers' Trust company of Kansas City closed because denied the privilege of issuing clearing house certificates. Has deposits of $800,000. All the banks in Oklahoma closed for a week by holiday proclamation of governor because unable to get cash from Kansas City and St. Louis banks. Duluth grain markat suspended and elevators advised not to buy grain. Wheat broke four cents at Chicago and 4 1/4 at New York and all grain weak. Runs continue on two small banks at New York. New York stock market opened at an advance."
In an editorial entitled "A Bank Situation Without Precedent," the Omaha World-Herald says: "In the midst of great prosperity several thousand of the leading banks of the United States yesterday suspended cash payments. They had hundreds of millions of dollars in their vaults belonging to their depositors, but they refused to pay it out. This occurred all over the United States and it came with a suddenness which took everybody by surprise, including the bankers themselves. For such an occurrence there is no parallel in history and no warrant in law. Unquestionably the first effect of such a performance is a shock which will jar the business world from center to circumference. Everyone will feel it and few will escape damage. There is, however, some satisfaction in the reflection that such a universal and such an acute attack cannot last long. Whatever change occurs now will be for the better. Apparently we are now all in the same boat with New York and as her condition improves ours will mend. Two great factors have combined to force the troubles of New York on the rest of the country. One was the fact that the rest of the country had several hundred million dollars in New York banks which had united in refusing to pay it out. The other was that the crop-moving period having arrived, western and southern banks, unable to get their money from New York, were getting it from the other reserve centers, Chicago being the chief. With thirty or forty million dollars tied up in New York, Chicago could not meet the strain and not only suspended, as New York had done, the making of cash payments, but advised and forced the other cities of the west to do the same. The effect will be to keep money in the banks, to expand the currency by the injection of certified checks, cashiers' checks and clearing house certificates, and give the country time to regain its financial equilibrium."
In the midst of this time of plenty everyone is asking, "How didit happen?" The World-Herald throws some light upon the situation in this way: "The four great banking institutions in New York belong to what is known as the 'Standard Oil crowd.'
* Then there are eight great trust companies which are benke that do a banking busness, practically without resrves.
"In those institutions was concentrated almost exactly one billion dollars, and there was where the trouble begun. The trust companies were competitors of these and other Standard banks. The panac began with a fight between them for business, and the Standard Oil methods were used. It did not work as well as when a little independent oil company was to be crushed out."
