Creative Books

Staple productions fell to less than
half of their former price; land values declined fifty to seventy
per cent.; manufacturers were in distress; laborers were out of
work; merchants were ruined. [Footnote: J. Q. Adams, Memoirs, IV.,
375; Jefferson, Writings, X., 257; Benton, View, I., 5; Niles'
Register, XVI., 114; Hodgson, Travels, II., 128; Sumner, Hist, of
Banking, I., chaps, vii., viii.] The conditions are illustrated in
the case of Cincinnati. By the foreclosure of mortgages, the
national bank came to own a large part of the city-hotels, coffee-
houses, warehouses, stables, iron foundries, residences, and vacant
lots. "All the flourishing cities of the West," cried Benton, "are
mortgaged to this money power. They may be devoured by it at any
moment. They are in the jaws of the monster!" Throughout the south
and west the bank became familiarly known as The Monster. [Footnote:
Catterall, Second Bank, 67.]
Even in the days of its laxity the national bank was obnoxious in
many quarters of the country.


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