CHAPTER XVIII.
PANICS.—THEIR CAUSES.—HOW FAR PREVENTABLE.
NOT ACCIDENTAL FREAKS OF THE MARKET.—WE ARE STILL A NATION OF
PIONEERS.—THE QUESTION OF PANICS PECULIARLY AMERICAN.—VIOLENT
OSCILLATIONS IN TRADE OWING TO THE GREAT MASS OF NEW AND IMMATURE
UNDERTAKINGS.—UNCERTAINTY ABOUT THE INTRINSIC VALUE OF
PROPERTIES.—SUDDEN SHRINKAGE OF RAILROAD PROPERTIES A FRUITFUL CAUSE
OF PANICS.—RISKS AND PANICS INSEPARABLE FROM PIONEERING
ENTERPRISE.—WE ARE BECOMING LESS DEPENDENT ON THE MONEY MARKETS OF
EUROPE.—IN PANICS MUCH DEPENDS UPON THE PRUDENCE AND SELF-CONTROL OF
THE MONEY LENDERS.—THE LAW WHICH COMPELS A RESERVE FUND IN THE
NATIONAL BANKS IS AT CERTAIN CRISES A PROVOCATIVE OF PANICS.—GEORGE
I. SENEY.—JOHN C. ENO.—FERDINAND WARD.—THE CLEARING HOUSE AS A
PREVENTIVE OF PANICS.
There are few subjects on which there is more loose theorizing than that
of the origin and remedy of panics. These crises are commonly spoken of
as accidental freaks of the markets, due to antecedent reckless
speculations, controlled in their progress by the acts of men and banks
who have lost their senses, but quite easily prevented, and as easily
cured when they happen.
These are the notions of mere surface observers. They may be in a
measure true, when applied to the markets of some of the older
countries, whose business moves in long-established grooves and embraces
but little of the risk attendant on new enterprises. In France and
Germany, for instance, the hazards of business are almost entirely
confined to the accidents of political events; and such nations are
comparatively exempt from panics due to purely commercial causes. In the
United States, panics arise, principally, from causes from which
European countries are exempt.
Notwithstanding our immense population and the large measure of
well-ordered consolidation that has been effected in our various
interests, we are still a nation of pioneers. In every ten years, we now
add nearly fifteen millions to our population, which means that each
successive decade we are piling up the equivalent of a first-class
European state upon our past marvellous accumulation of empire.
Inseparable from this unparalleled national growth are great ventures
and great commercial and financial risks. Our new population has to
subdue new territory. New lands have to be cleared; new mines have to be
opened; new industries have to be established; new railroads have to be
built; new banks created and new corporations founded. These new
ventures are necessarily in a measure experimental. Some of them fail
utterly; others succeed magnificently. They require large outlays of
capital in advance of obtainable results. These outlays are, in many
cases, met by borrowing; the loans being secured by liens upon the
uncertain undertakings, and therefore lacking the stability of value
that attaches to well developed investments.
We have thus a ceaseless stream of new issues of stocks, mortgages and
commercial paper, and have, therefore, at all times outstanding a large
amount of obligations which, from the uncertainty of their basis, are
liable to wide fluctuations in value. Besides these absolutely new
investments, we have also at all times an equal or larger amount of
obligations issued against enterprises which, although not properly new,
are still in an unconsolidated and experimental stage, and the value of
which is, therefore, subject to wide fluctuations. Issues of this
character naturally appeal to the adventurous instincts of our people
and elicit a vast extent of speculative activity.
It is this peculiarity in the development and trade of the United States
that renders our markets more exposed to panic than those of any other
nation, and which makes the question of panics a peculiarly American
one. In any and every commercial nation, trade is subject to regular
successions of prosperity and depression. This oscillation results from,
or constitutes a natural law.
The action of commerce, like the motion of the sea or the atmosphere,
follows an undulatory line. First comes an ascending wave of activity
and rising prices; next, when prices have risen to a point that checks
demand, comes a period of hesitation and caution; then, care among
lenders and discounters; then comes the descending movement, in which
holders simultaneously endeavor to realize, thereby accelerating a
general fall in prices. Credit then becomes more sensitive and is
contracted; transactions are diminished; losses are incurred through the
depreciation of property, and finally the ordeal becomes so severe to
the debtor class that forcible liquidation has to be adopted, and
insolvent firms and institutions must be wound up. This process is a
periodical experience in every country; and the extent of the
destructiveness of the crisis that attends it depends chiefly on the
steadiness and conservatism of the business methods in each particular
community affected. In addition to this ordinary and, I would even say,
_natural_ liability to commercial crises with a greater or lesser degree
of panic, we, in the United States, have to stand the far more violent
oscillations so inseparable from our great mass of new and immature
undertakings.
In times of crisis, the obligations issued against such enterprises
suffer instantly from the uncertainty about their intrinsic value.
Holders are anxious to get rid of them; banks which have advanced money
on them, call in their advances; and they become virtually unavailable
assets. Every panic that has happened since the beginning of the era of
railroads in this country, has been intensified many-fold by the sudden
shrinkage in the value of this class of assets; and it is precisely here
that the aggravation and the chief danger of an American panic centres.
In view of these facts, what is the use of discussing the possibility of
averting our periodic panics? Risks and panics are inseparable from our
vast pioneering enterprise; and all we can hope is, that they may
diminish in severity in proportion as our older and more consolidated
interests afford an increasing power of resistance to their operation. I
am disposed to think that, in the future, the counteraction from this
source will be much more effective than it has been in the past. The
accumulations of financial resource available for market purposes at our
monetary centres are increasing at a very rapid rate. Evidence of this
is seen in the fact that, while the magnitude of our corporate
undertakings is augmenting every year, we are also every year becoming
less dependent on the money markets of Europe, and our large corporate
loans are now made principally at home. These accumulations afford
elasticity to our financial system and serve as a buffer against the
violence of great financial disturbances.
I do not see how we can in any other way satisfactorily explain how it
is that, while we have had two distinct waves of commercial depression
since the great crisis of 1873, such as have ordinarily been attended
with more or less panic, we have had no disturbance that can be regarded
as a fully developed panic. The only approach to it was the disturbance
brought about by the Grant & Ward failure in May, 1884, which was merely
a restricted and comparatively temporary affair.
But, whilst maintaining that panics cannot be avoided in a country
situated as ours is in its present incomplete development, I cannot
avoid expressing the opinion that conditions are permitted to exist
which needlessly aggravate the perils of these upheavals when they do
occur. In every panic very much depends upon the prudence and
self-control of the money lenders. If they lose their heads and
indiscriminately refuse to lend, or lend only to the few unquestionably
strong borrowers, the worst forms of panic ensue; if they accommodate to
their fullest ability the larger and reasonably safe class of borrowers,
then the latter may be relied upon to protect those whom the banks
reject, and thus the mischief may be kept within legitimate bounds.
Everything depends upon rashness being held in check by an assurance
that deserving debtors will be protected. This is tantamount to saying
that all depends on the calmness and wisdom of the banks. They may
easily mitigate or aggravate the severity of the crisis, according as
they are prudently liberal or blindly selfish. It is, perhaps, safe to
say, that the banks never do all they may; but the banks of this city
must be credited with having shown great sagacity under repeated
derangements of this kind within the last twenty-five years. They have
largely succeeded in combining self-protection with the protection of
their customers; and the antecedents they have established will go far
toward breaking the force of any future panic.
But, unfortunately, the law imposes restraints upon the national banks
which seriously interfere with the wise discretion of those
institutions. As the law now stands, the banks are liable to be wound up
at the order of the Government if they permit their lawful money
reserves to fall below 26 per cent. of their legal deposits. This
establishes a “dead line” which is so dreaded when approached that it
becomes almost a panic line. When that limit is reached, the banks are
compelled to contract their loans; and, in certain conditions, the
contraction of loans means forcible liquidation, without regard to
consequences. Thus the very contrivance designed to protect the banks
becomes a source of most serious danger to their customers and therefore
to the banks themselves; and, in times of monetary pressure, it is the
most direct provocative of panic. Were the banks allowed to use their
reserves under such circumstances, a fund would be provided for
mitigating the force of the crisis, and the danger might be gradually
tided over; but, as it is, the banks can legally do little or nothing to
avert panic; on the contrary, the law compels them to take a course
which precipitates it; and when the crash has come, they have to unite
in common cause to disregard the law and do what they can to repair the
catastrophe that a preposterous enactment has helped to bring about.
This is one of not a few unwise restrictions upon our national banks
which needs to be stricken from the statute book. These periods of the
breaking-down of unsound enterprises and of the weeding out of insolvent
debtors and of liquidation of bad debts can never be wholly averted; nor
is it desirable that they should, for they are essential to the
maintenance of a sound and wholesome condition of business; but it is a
grave reproach to our legislators if, when the day of purgation comes,
the law treats the deserving and the undeserving with equal severity.
GEORGE I. SENEY.
The most prominent characters in the short lived panic of 1884, as every
observing person knows, were Ferdinand Ward, James D. Fish and a few
others who acted minor parts in connection with the methods of
financiering which precipitated the crisis in Wall Street.
There are many people who think that Ward—the Young Napoleon of finance,
as he was popularly called—was able to dupe everybody, his accomplices
included, and that he was chiefly responsible for all the trouble. But
this is an exaggerated and unscientific view of the case.
Among the financiers who came to grief in the general embarrassment
caused by the peculiar methods of the two financiers referred to, was
George I. Seney. Seney gave his money away, and it was placed in the
wrong quarters for any tangible return. He was a great patron of the
churches and religious institutions. If he had studied the life of
Daniel Drew, he might have discovered that investments in such
enterprises as these were not particularly profitable. In his financial
difficulties, Seney was left high and dry without friends who would come
to his rescue. The result was, that the two financial institutions, the
Metropolitan Bank and the Brooklyn bank with which he was thoroughly
identified, had to go under as the result of Mr. Seney’s misfortunes.
And an insurance company in Brooklyn, which had loaned about all of its
surplus to Mr. Seney, taking Metropolitan Bank stock as collateral, was
swamped as well.
There are few of the speculative magnates who succumbed to the crash of
1884, whose financial histories are more interesting than that of Mr.
Seney. He is the son of a Methodist minister, and was born at Astoria,
Long Island, about sixty years ago. He has always manifested the deepest
devotion to his paternal church, and in the very height of his
prosperity the church was the first object of his financial care. He was
educated at the University of the City of New York, and shortly after he
graduated, and when about 22 years of age, entered the Metropolitan Bank
as a clerk. He was afterwards teller and then cashier. This was when Mr.
Williams was President and when Mr. Jacques was Vice-President. Mr.
Jacques resigned that position several years ago and made a prolonged
journey to Europe. Mr. Williams died a few years ago, and Mr. Seney
became his successor as President of the bank.
Mr. Seney’s wonderful financial abilities were a comparatively recent
outgrowth of his mental evolution, at an age when very few men exhibit
signs of new developments.
Up to a date shortly prior to the panic, he was generally regarded as
slow and phlegmatic, without manifesting any special parts that
indicated superior brilliancy as a financier. He first distinguished
himself in Wall Street during the speculative furore of 1879, and came
to the front then with sudden and surprising activity. He carved out an
original course for himself in speculation—so original, in fact, as to
stamp the enterprises with which he became identified with his name. The
Seney properties became almost as familiar to the financial world as the
Goulds, the Vanderbilts and the Villards.
Mr. Seney’s chief securities (so-called through the courtesy of
speculative parlance) were Ohio Central, Rochester and Pittsburgh, East
Tennessee, Virginia & Georgia, and the celebrated “Nickel Plate” Road.
These were known as the Seney Syndicate properties, and the system of
handling them was entirely novel in the history of Wall Street, causing
the financial veterans of Wall Street to stand and stare at the boldness
and rapidity of the Seney movements.
Instead of starting with moderate issues in amount, as has usually been
the custom of most men handling railroad and telegraph properties, and
doing the watering process by degrees, Mr. Seney boldly began the
watering at the very inception of the enterprise, pouring it in lavishly
and without stint. There was nothing mean or niggardly about his method
of free dilution, the sight of which threw some of the old operators
into a fit of consternation. The stocks were strongly puffed, and as
they were so thoroughly diluted their owners could afford to let them
get a start at a very low figure. The future prospects of the properties
were set forth in the most glowing colors, the public took the bait, and
the stocks became at once conspicuous among the leading active fancies
of the market.
The cause of the vigorous life and amazing activity so suddenly imparted
to the stocks of the Seney Syndicate can only be revealed by a careful
perusal of Mr. Seney’s checkbook, which, if still in existence, will
show commissions paid for the execution of the orders to buy and the
orders executed to sell, both by the same pen and in the same
handwriting.
These transactions, in the language of the “Street,” are called washed
sales. In this way Mr. Seney was understood to have made a very large
amount of money, and from being almost one of the poorest men in
Brooklyn, he soon became marked as the richest. While he continued to
thrive it was a singular fact that the majority of his financial friends
seemed to fall into a decline.
When the affairs of the Seney enterprise were wound up, it was
discovered that these people had little left except the certificates
which bore the high-sounding term of the Seney Syndicate Property.
One peculiarity about Mr. Seney in his social relations was, that while
he appeared almost bereft of sympathy for used-up friends whom his
schemes had ruined, he drew largely on his immense gains for
philanthropic purposes, and in the aggregate must have distributed over
$2,000,000 in a very magnanimous manner.
It would seem that Mr. Seney at one time aspired to be a great
philanthropist, and had it not been for the unfortunate exposé which was
the result of the panic, he might one day have stood in as high and
lordly a position as the renowned Peabody, with even a greater
reputation as a financier. It is sad to picture the contrast presented
by the _denouement_ with what might have been, in a career which began
with so much promise, dating from the time that Mr. Seney was installed
as President of the Metropolitan Bank, whose standing and credit were
the highest in the State.
Mr. Seney’s speculative career affords an example of the way in which
this kind of speculation reflects on the stability of our best banking
institutions. The lesson is one that should be carefully taken to heart
by the financiers of this country.
It is due, however, to Mr. Seney to state that he alone was not
responsible for the misfortunes of the Metropolitan Bank, although he
was the ruling spirit; for it could hardly be possible that the
directors of that institution could have been ignorant of its affairs in
connection with the Seney speculations. The Metropolitan Bank cannot be
compared with the Marine Bank, which met a similar misfortune, for it
was no family affair, and Mr. Seney had none of his relatives connected
with it, as Mr. Fish had with the Marine Bank.
It appears that it was chiefly owing to the fact that Mr. Seney had so
little personal interest in the Metropolitan Bank that he was so anxious
to gut the concern, knowing that the loss would fall upon others.
The most important point for speculators and investors, however,
connected with the enterprises of these men is, that the terrible
shrinkage of Stock Exchange values at the time, amounting to over
$1,000,000,000, was in a large measure brought about by a foregone
conclusion on the part of the sagacious bear cliques that disaster would
sooner or later overtake the institutions over which Mr. Seney and Mr.
Fish presided.
This should afford a wholesome lesson, through the medium of practical
experience, to speculators and investors for all future time. For this
very reason the facts are worthy of being put on permanent record as a
reminder and a guide, particularly to Wall Street men, who are too often
prone to forget the past and thus leave themselves liable to be caught
in a similar net again.
The transactions of the four prominent speculators who played the most
conspicuous part in the events which resulted in the panic of May, 1884,
should be preserved for reference, as a guide when similar cases arise,
for in spite of the deep disgrace, shame and misery that have followed
in the wake of their enterprises, these men will have hosts of imitators
for many years to come. Ward, Fish, Seney and Eno, with probably the one
exception, Fish, are, by many, considered smart men, who simply had the
misfortune to become involved, but who had a fair chance of coming out
of all their troubles, great millionaires and publicly honored for their
ability and success.
It must be admitted that there are some examples in the financial world
whose careers will fully support this theory and belief but they are the
exceptions which only prove the rule in speculation, as in other lines
of business, that “honesty is the best policy.” These men, who have been
apparently so successful through dishonest methods, are never free from
dread of being tripped up at any period of their inflated prosperity.
They are always subject to be called upon by the application of the
stern methods of honest financiering to give an account of their
stewardship, and to have the transactions of a lifetime eventually
gauged by the standard of public honesty. It is the winding up that
tells the tale, and exposes the duplicity of the ablest financiers, who
vainly imagine that dishonest methods will always prevail.
JOHN C. ENO.
Of the four famous “financiers” mentioned who were most prominent in the
Summer panic of 1884, the speculative history of John C. Eno was in some
respects the most remarkable and most interesting.
Eno was a young man, not more than twenty-six years of age, and a
representative of that class of ardent and youthful speculators who
plunge into the market with all the recklessness incident to young and
sanguine imaginations, with many roseate schemes of wealth and
greatness, for which inexperienced youth is proverbial. Eno was a victim
of that rashness, impulsiveness and desire for extravagance, by which
the possessors of these attributes frequently get themselves and many of
their associates embroiled in numerous difficulties and embarrassments.
Another point of interest in the curious career of Eno was his position
as President of the Second National Bank of New York, up to the time of
the panic. Seldom does it fall to the lot of a youth of his tender years
to have conferred upon him a position of such responsibility and
dignity. The manner in which he made use of this position of trust, for
appropriating money which did not belong to him, was notable for its
peculiar ingenuity.
Most of the money lent by the bank was upon collateral securities,
which, for convenience, as well as for safety, were kept, not at the
bank, which was situated under the Fifth Avenue Hotel, but in a vault
down town.
The capital stock of the bank was $100,000, and it had $4,000,000 of
deposits, all of which was appropriated to speculative use by this smart
young man, who decamped to Canada in company with a Roman Catholic
priest.
Eno happened to have a rich father, who had made his money by thrift and
economy during a long and prosperous life. To his credit, it must be
said, that he came promptly to the rescue of this wayward and erring
son, and paid the bank, of which he was director, three and one-half
millions of dollars, on condition that the other half million should be
contributed by the other directors, all of whom were very rich men. The
directors willingly accepted the proposition, and thus the entire
deficiency was made good by this generous arrangement, so that none of
the depositors suffered the loss of a dollar.
The methods which Mr. John C. Eno, the President, resorted to for the
purpose of capturing the institution root and branch, were ingenious and
unique in their character, inasmuch as they had a tendency to inspire
the fullest confidence in his vigilance and honesty regarding the
affairs of the bank, instead of exciting any suspicion.
He discouraged the custom of keeping the securities of the bank in its
own vaults, on the pretense that they were not sufficiently secure, and
suggested that a safe should be rented in one of the down town safe
deposit companies. This was done at his request. He argued, further,
that the funds on hand being mostly family deposits, the depositors were
not of a class that often required to be accommodated with discounts,
and that the money was not taken by the bank to be locked up and kept on
hand so as to have the name of having it, but to be used to the best
possible advantage consistent with safety, to make profitable returns
through interest. Consequently, he was allowed to use the money of the
bank freely to make loans to Wall Street brokers on interest, with
approved collaterals, and he represented to the directors that he was
carrying out this course.
As the bank was located so far up town, (at Twenty-third street,) the
distance from Wall Street made it extra hazardous to send securities
back and forth, as adventurous thieves might seize the messenger on the
way. This has frequently happened in this city. It was, therefore,
desirable to have the safe deposit vault in close proximity to Wall
Street. Of the combination to the safe in this vault Mr. John C. Eno was
the sole possessor. Having things fixed in this manner it was
indispensable that the President himself should go down town every day,
so as to accommodate the brokers in the loaning of money. The directors
were by this plan convinced that the risks, through the careful methods
adopted by the President, were no greater than if the bank was located
in Wall Street. These conservative methods, so skilfully planned and
plausibly explained, increased the confidence of the directors in the
able and careful management of Mr. Eno, and nobody was so much surprised
as they, when the wool was raised from their eyes and they discovered
that these various and ostensible “safeguards” were ingeniously devised
for the sole purpose of screening their skilful inventor in the
accomplishment of his huge defalcations.
Instead of loaning the money to Wall Street brokers, as he represented
to the directors, he placed it as margin with his own brokers in various
speculative ventures, and in that manner he made away with the entire
$4,000,000 of the bank’s deposits without exciting the least suspicion
in the confiding breasts of the directors.
Such another instance of a clean sweep of the deposits of a bank by any
of its officials, is probably not on record in the whole history of this
kind of manipulation.
When the President represented to the Cashier, every evening, that he
had lent specified sums on certain securities, his word was taken, and
his checks for the amounts duly honored, without exciting a feeling of
suspicion. Thus, by degrees the books of the bank showed $4,000,000 of
call loans upon unexceptionable collaterals, when in fact the money had
all gone to the President’s private account.
Eno speculated with the greater portion of the money in stocks that were
continually declining in price, and at length the time arrived when he
was obliged to make a clean breast of the terrible condition of his
affairs to his father. As I have stated, the old gentleman, Mr. Amos R.
Eno, nobly came to the relief of his prodigal son, and saved the bank
from suspension.
As Eno senior is still worth about $25,000,000, he will never suffer the
pangs of poverty through this great loss; but it will take a long time
to enable him to survive the disgrace which the flagrant acts of his son
have brought upon an honest and highly respected name.
THE CLEARING-HOUSE AS A PREVENTER OF PANICS.
In this panic the boldest and most remarkable instance of self-sacrifice
on record was manifested by the Clearing-House banks. The panic of 1884,
in its incipient stage, was different to any that had preceded it—at
least any of the financial convulsions within my recollection—owing to
the influence exercised upon it by the prompt and liberal policy of the
banks. In every respect their action was notable, showing that those at
the head of their management had largely profited by the lessons of
former panics.
It was chiefly due to the masterly management of the banks, together
with the magnanimous conduct of Mr. Amos R. Eno and his associate
directors of the Second National Bank, that the panic was short-lived
and so narrowly circumscribed. Had it not been for the determinate and
instantaneous joint action of these parties there would have been a very
serious crash, which would have been far-reaching in its results.
The results of the timely action taken on the part of the managers of
these institutions in this crisis, proves that panics can be arrested by
proper methods, and that quick and determined action is indispensable in
the incipient stage of the emergency. If bank presidents could only be
relied upon by the business community to act promptly and in unison with
the business men, as they did in this instance, threatened panics need
have but little terror for the people, who now live constantly in dread
that these outbursts of business disaster may be sprung upon them at any
time in any decade.
In the past history of panics bank managers, as a rule, have acted
without system, without judgment and almost entirely without any well
defined plan of action. There has been an astonishing lack of vigor in
their methods and purposes, which were weak and vacillating in their
character—frequently more like the acts of children than those of
business men.
If the panic of 1873 had received the same vigorous treatment in its
origin as that of 1884, it could just as easily have been checked as the
latter, and the entire country would have been saved a large portion of
the depressing effects of that serious collapse and its attendant
disasters, which caused a state of general prostration for five or six
years succeeding the event. These years, from a business standpoint,
appear as a blank in the history of the country’s progress. Indeed, they
constitute a black mark.
In 1884 the bears indulged in much adverse criticism in regard to the
action of the Clearing-House in taking Mr. Seney’s pictures as
collateral. At the time, this method of financiering was without
precedent; but the result has fully justified the policy of the
Clearing-House Association and its management. Such an exceptionally
fine collection of paintings in a country like this, now filled with
connoisseurs who have sufficient wealth to gratify their tastes,
stimulates the demand for these luxurious articles of value and
transforms them into the best collateral to be found in the market. When
the Seney pictures were offered for sale at auction they attracted
greater competition in the purchase, at good prices, than could have
been obtained for almost any class of railroad securities connected with
Wall Street for months afterwards. While Mr. Seney seems to have been as
much of a virtuoso as the late Mrs. Morgan, he did not permit his love
of the beautiful to rise to such a pitch of exaltation as would cause
him to pay the extravagant prices which almost ruined that eccentric
woman. He never forgot that the picture had a “market” value, and never
permitted his enthusiasm for the fine arts to make him a victim of sharp
and unconscionable dealers. In fact he appeared to have been more
wide-awake in picture buying than banking, and demonstrated that the
former, rather than the latter, was his forte. If the bank presidents
had not acted in the praiseworthy manner referred to, the financial
revulsion of that panic would have been very serious. Several millions
of deposits in the Metropolitan and Second National were promptly drawn
out, and forthwith entered into circulation. This saved the community
from the evil influence of a large number of panic makers in the persons
of the depositors of these banks. Instead, therefore, of helping to stir
up the excitement—as they would have done by pursuing the selfish policy
formerly resorted to in similar circumstances—every person with funds in
these two institutions, assisted very effectively to allay suspicion and
create confidence, instead of distrust.
It was the disturbing element of panic makers, who generally constitute
one of the most potent factors of disruption to be dealt with in seasons
of business trouble, that caused the greater part of the trouble at the
time of Jay Cooke’s failure. The holders of the Northern Pacific bonds
then, finding that the security was no longer equal to that of
Government bonds (as they had been taught to believe), but was
apparently worthless, became panic-stricken at their losses, and were
all transformed into panic-makers, infusing the spirit of distrust into
every person with whom they came into contact, until, like a fatal
virus, it inoculated the whole country, spreading business disaster far
and wide.
[Illustration:
_G. I. Seney_
]
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