+------+-------------+-------------+-----------------------------+
| | Average | Per cent | |
|Year. | Daily | Balances to | Remarks. |
| | Clearings. | Clearings. | |
+------+-------------+-------------+-----------------------------+
| 1870 | $90,274,479 | 3.72 | |
| 1873 | 115,885,794 | 4.15 | Great business activity. |
| 1874 | 74,692,574 | 5.62 | Industrial depression. |
| 1881 | 159,232,191 | 3.66 | Renewal of railway building.|
| 1885 | 82,789,480 | 5.12 | Results of bank panic. |
| 1890 | 123,074,139 | 4.65 | Business expansion. |
| 1894 | 79,704,426 | 6.54 | Depression following panic. |
| 1896 | 96,232,442 | 6.28 | Free silver panic. |
| 1899 | 189,961,029 | 5.37 | Renewed confidence and |
| | | | activity. |
| 1901 | 254,193,639 | 4.56 | Culmination of industrial |
| | | | flotations. |
| 1904 | 195,648,514 | 5.20 | Diminished stock-exchange |
| | | | and business activity. |
| 1906 | 342,422,773 | 3.69 | Stock-market activity. |
+------+-------------+-------------+-----------------------------+
The Clearing-House Committee of the New York Clearing-House exercises a
powerful influence over the banking situation through its ability to refuse
aid in emergencies to a bank which is unwisely conducted. This power was
used in the panic of 1907 to eliminate several important, but speculative,
financial interests from control of national banks. Only national and state
banks and the sub-Treasury were members of the Clearing-House at this time.
Their weekly reports of condition were awaited every Saturday as an index
of the state of the money-market and the exchanges; but this index was
incomplete and sometimes misleading, because regular weekly reports were
not made by trust companies. It was announced early in 1908 by the state
superintendent of banking that he would exercise a power vested in him by
law to require weekly reports in future from trust companies, so that the
two classes of reports would present a substantially complete mirror of
banking conditions in New York.
AUTHORITIES.--William M. Gouge, _A History of Paper Money and Banking in
the United States_ (Philadelphia, 1833); Condy Raguet, _A Treatise on
Currency and Banking_ (Philadelphia, 1840); J. S. Gibbons, _The Banks of
New York, their Dealers, the Clearing-House and the Panic of 1857_ (New
York, 1858); Albert S. Bolles. _Financial History of the United States_ (3
vols., New York, 1884-1886); Charles F. Dunbar, _Chapters on the Theory and
History of Banking_ (New York and London, 1891); Horace White, _Money and
Banking_ (Boston, 1902); Charles A. Conant, _A History of Modern Banks of
Issue_ (New York, 1896); Alexander D. Noyes, _Thirty Years of American
Finance_ (New York, 1898); Davis Rich Dewey, _Financial History of the
United States_ (New York and London, 1903); John C. Schwab, _The
Confederate States of America_, 1861-1865 (New York, 1901); David Kinley,
_The Independent Treasury of the United States_ (New York, 1893); _Report
of the Monetary Commission of the Indianapolis Convention_ (Chicago, 1898);
Charles A. Conant, _The Principles of Money and Banking_ (2 vols., New
York, 1905); William G. Sumner, _A History of American Currency_ (New York,
1884); Amos Kidder Fiske, _The Modern Bank_ (New York, 1904); William G.
Sumner, _A History of Banking in the United States_ (New York, 1896), being
vol. i. in _A History of Banking in All the Leading Nations_; John Jay
Knox, _History of Banking in the United States_ (rev. ed., New York, 1900);
and R. C. H. Catterall, _The Second Bank of the United States_ (Chicago,
1903).
Much statistical information is contained in the annual reports of the
comptroller of the currency of the United States, published annually at
Washington.
(C. A. C.)