New York Gov. Roswell Flower used his keynote speech to a national audience on “New York Day” at the Chicago World’s Fair to downplay the threat of the Panic of 1893, which started the nation’s worst depression up to that time.
“This business men of this country deserve the greatest praise for the manner in which they have held their heads above water during these frightful days,” he said, speaking on September 5, 1893.
Between January 1st and September 1st of that year, 145 national banks had suspended operations, The Morning Star of Glens Falls, NY reported.
By the end of 1893, 600 banks and 16,000 businesses would fail. Investment and credit were hard to come by. “First, they had the banks against them, banks that held on to their money, storing it up, afraid to use it,” Flower said, according to a report day following his speech. “Second, they had the frightened depositors against them, who drew out their money and hoarded it up.”
Flower, incorrectly, predicted a quick recovery. “But the tide has turned,” he declared. “Already the good day has come, and I can safely predict that within ten days all the money will flow out again, and there will be an
abundance of cheap money.”
Former U.S. Rep. George West, R-Ballston Spa, known as “The Paper Bag King,” was another who preached optimism at the outset of the depression.
“Here is a silver lining paragraph for you. My eight factories are all humming and on full time and turning out 2,500,000 paper bags a day,” he told a New York City newspaper reporter. “All these bags are used to put
something in. If people were not buying, there would be no need for paper bags, and my factories would be closed.”
West urged reporters to inspire optimism. “What we need now is to have confidence restored. Everybody can help in that direction by not talking hard times or howling hard times. With calmness restored, morning will
come from its hiding place.”
The Morning Star also suggested optimism. “In a few months the American people will be going on speculating and making money just as though nothing had happened to them,” the newspaper editorialized on Sept. 18.
On other occasions editors used humor to alleviate tension over economic conditions. “Well, it’s a grand fruit year, anyhow, thank Providence,” they quipped on September 9th.
“One indicator of better times is the fish appear to have more confidence to bite, and several good catches in this vicinity have recently been reported,” they reported on August 28th.
The annual Thanksgiving editorial of The Granville Sentinel urged patience. “The yearly festival of Thanksgiving comes to many who are wondering what they have to be thankful for.” “In past years it has been the crowning of a season of prosperity and plenty, but now it appears to thousands as the very climax of poverty and want.”
By January 5, 1894, editor John McArthur hoped the outcome of the November elections would turn the tide. “Let us tell them that the wait is over. The dark cloud of their suffering is lifting, and the silver lining will soon come into view.” He encouraged the spread of optimism.
“In these days of complaint and dissatisfaction and, the community or individual that is willing to stand up and claim to have had a prosperous year looms out of the night like a locomotive headlight, and is gratifying to the eye as an oasis in the desert,” he wrote.
The editorial noted an exception to inflation, although the cynic might question if the retailer was merely desperate for cash. “A comparison of the prices for 1893 and 1894 given in S.B. Whitney’s space shows that one
can buy shoes cheaper than a year ago.”
Later that January The Granville Sentinel editorialized that there was a silver lining in the crisis. “One good indication of the times is that there are more calls for farms this winter than there have been for a number of years. Many that have of late been so anxious to live in town now conclude that the country is a good enough place for them, and that there is profit and pleasure in tilling the soil.”
The Panic of 1893 lasted until 1897, affecting every sector of the economy. The resulting political upheaval led to a political realignment and the election of William McKinley to the presidency. One effect was the abandonment of the Love Canal project, which instead became a toxic dump. A housing complex and school built on the site led to the discovery of the environmental disaster in the 1970s.
Illustration: Detail from a drawing in Frank Leslie’s of panicked stockbrokers on May 9, 1893.
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