The Ironton Bank Gives Down – ‘Calls Ironton a Mob City’
Buffalo Daily Republic, Buffalo, NY 28 Nov 1857 page 2
The Ironton Bank, through an organized mob called to its aid, repulsed Gen. E. B. Tyler, of Ravenna, who presented a few thousand of its notes for payment a few weeks ago. It has been well punished for its lawlessness. Gen. Tyler was not a broker, but an agent of the American Fur Company, annually disbursing large sums of money in the purchase of furs in Ohio and Western Virginia.
He was not to be bluffed by one failure and again presented himself at the counter last Friday with about ten thousand dollars in its notes. He was accompanied by a half dozen friends, fellows who proposed to cure weak eyes with a sight of the yellow boys or see a free fight. A faint attempt was made to get up the mob, the bells rung, and several hundred men gathered around the General and his staff, but the bank officers were afraid of losing their charter, caved in, and counted out the ten thousand dollars in gold – The bank is an Independent State Stock Bank.
The Kentucky papers, in districts where the money of the bank circulates, are very severe upon the bank and the citizens of the mob city of Ironton. It was indeed a singular spectacle, to see at diverse points in Ohio, bodies of hardworking people ready at the bidding of such mountebanks as Tom Ford, to protect by violence the most corrupt and mismanaged institutions in the defiance of law, and in the violation of the promises which alone affected the pecuniary affairs of the people.
The people have actually given away special privileges of manufacturing a sham currency to displace the constitutional one of gold and silver – having relieved them of paying taxes as farmers, merchants, and mechanics are obliged to do – and lent the public confidence and credit to the banks, enabling them to spread their currency all over the country, inflating prices, stimulating speculation, and making men drunk with excess of rag money – having done this, and seeing the natural result in a financial revulsion which throws thousands of laborers, operators, and mechanics out of work; paralyzing the enterprise and industry of the country in a manner unprecedented in its history – it is passing strange that the banks should receive a particle of sympathy from the people.
It is but a particle, however, and it may be easily predicted that the lesson which has been so severely felt will teach us that hereafter, the less the people grant a license to moneyed corporations, the better it will be for the steady prosperity and the honest industry of the citizens. – Cleveland Plaindealer.
0 Comments