(Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We h...)
Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.
The Credit Of The South: Viewed From A State, Municipal And General Standpoint. Address Delivered Before The Commercial Club Of Nashville, Tenn., May 24th, 1892, Volume 64...
(This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)
This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections
such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact,
or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections,
have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works
worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.
++++
The below data was compiled from various identification fields in the bibliographic record of this title. This data is provided as an additional tool in helping to ensure edition identification:
++++
The Credit Of The South: Viewed From A State, Municipal And General Standpoint. Address Delivered Before The Commercial Club Of Nashville, Tenn., May 24th, 1892, Volume 64; The Credit Of The South: Viewed From A State, Municipal And General Standpoint. Address Delivered Before The Commercial Club Of Nashville, Tenn., May 24th, 1892; John Skelton Williams
John Skelton Williams
W. E. Jones, printer, 1892
Business & Economics; Public Finance; Business & Economics / Public Finance; Debts, Public; Southern States
(Excerpt from The Soul in the Dollar
Look back, gentlemen...)
Excerpt from The Soul in the Dollar
Look back, gentlemen! Not so many hundred years ago we bankers were classed as mere money changers and usurers. Our predecessors won their gains by preying on the necessities of kings and nobles and common people alike. That was the jungle law put into polite and elaborately entang ling and ruinous phrases, supported by the laws of all the old countries. Now and then it was found necessary, in England, and other lands, to change the laws on usury and decree violent penalties to save the throne, the haughty nobility and the yeo manry from the rapacity of the money lenders. The forces of law and arms were set up against the force of garnered riches; sword and rope and lash were applied in attempts to check the ceaseless en croachments of usurious interest; but in these mod ern days we have learned that the dollar has a soul, and that even great accumulations and gather ings of dollars may have souls.
In this connection I may define the word soul as the inspiration of a real and high purpose. John Randolph, of Roanoke, described a corporation as a thing without a body to be kicked or a soul to be damned. As we know now, many of us by pain ful experience, our legislating powers, adminis trative officers, courts and labor unions have found innumerable ways to kick corporations and the accumulations of capital they represent. Perhapspartly because of this kicking and certainly because of what I may call the improved civilization of our standards and an understanding of our relations with each other, our corporations and our dollars have developed and are developing souls.
We are learning that justice and mercy are sound business principles and make the one sure founda tion for enduring and real business success. If the history of the human race, of countries, communi ties and individuals proves any one fact, that fact is that no community can thrive permanently or con tinue to exist where the few gather great riches and the many are deprived. In the jungle the ruth less use of strength or craft, the sudden spring of overmastering power on weakness, the stealthy de struction by cunning of the unwary, are appropri ate. These are the beasts that perish. They do not build or think for the future.
About the Publisher
Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com
This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
Our Advance From Appomattox: Address of John Skelton Williams of Richmond, at the Celebration of the Hundredth Anniversary of the Birthday of General ... Atlanta, January 19, 1907 (Classic Reprint)
(Excerpt from Our Advance From Appomattox: Address of John...)
Excerpt from Our Advance From Appomattox: Address of John Skelton Williams of Richmond, at the Celebration of the Hundredth Anniversary of the Birthday of General Robert E. Lee, Before the Virginia Society of Atlanta, January 19, 1907
General Lee did not need the stern discipline of the army or the activities of war to exact obedience from those who followed him. His spirit pervaded his camps. The mightiness and the beauty of his soul were felt and shared regardless of distance or difference in military rank. These men continued to be Lee's men after they had ceased to be Lee's soldiers. They bore home with them his pure cour age, his deathless faith, his calm but indomitable determination that for the South defeat should not mean despair, and disappointment should not bring with it ruin and obliteration.
About the Publisher
Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com
This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
John Skelton Williams was an American financier and public official.
Background
John Skelton Williams was born on July 6, 1865 in Powhatan County, Virginia, one of several sons of John Langbourne Williams and Maria Ward (Skelton), a grandson of John Williams, born in Ireland, who died in Richmond, Virginia, in 1860, and a great-great-grandson of Edmund Randolph.
Education
He attended public school in Richmond.
Career
He entered the banking house of J. L. Williams & Sons, founded by his father, which was active in promoting and financing public utilities not only in the Richmond area but throughout the South.
His most important financial task while an investment banker was the formation, beginning in 1895, of the Seaboard Air Line Railway out of an array of shorter railway lines.
At thirty-four he became first president of the new railroad. But the venture which was apparently consummated so brilliantly in 1900 soon ran into financial difficulties. After a long struggle with a group of New York financiers headed by Thomas Fortune Ryan, Williams was forced out of the presidency on December 30, 1903.
For a number of years thereafter he and his local banking allies struggled unsuccessfully to regain control of the road. It was a lesson in the power of New York financiers which left him bitterly antagonistic to them.
In March 1913 Williams was appointed assistant secretary of the treasury by President Wilson, at the request of Secretary McAdoo. In January 1914 he was named comptroller of the currency, but his appointment was confirmed by the Senate only after a committee had vindicated him from the charge of using treasury deposits to aid his brother's bank. As comptroller of the currency he was ex officio a member of the organizing committee which set up the new Federal Reserve system.
When McAdoo was made director-general of the railroads in December 1917, Williams became his director of finances and purchases, a position which he held until March 1919 along with the comptrollership.
Williams entered upon his duties as comptroller with a vigor that won him many enemies. Three months after assuming the office, in a speech delivered before the North Carolina Bankers' Association (Democracy in Banking, 1914), he attacked the concentration of banking control "in the hands of a dozen men, " pointed to the political and economic dangers of huge fortunes, and praised the Federal Reserve system as a means of decentralizing financial control. Later he antagonized the national banks by accusing them of usurious practices. His frequent reiteration of this charge in the course of the next seven years served to reopen old wounds.
From April 1915 to June 1916 he was engaged in a series of suits with officials of the Riggs National Bank of Washington, D. C. , and although a perjury case against the Bank's directors ended in an acquittal, Williams' charges of irregular practices were sustained and the bank's charter was renewed only after the directors pledged themselves to abide by the law in the future. To his lengthening list of antagonists he added the state banks and state banking officials when in a public statement he contrasted the safety of national and state banks. In his Annual Report for 1917, he advocated the national guaranty of all deposits of $5, 000 or less in national banks, to assure depositor confidence in the face of the war situation and to bring money out of hiding. Not until 1933 did the federal government, faced by financial panic, adopt such a policy.
Upon the expiration of Williams' appointment in 1919, bitter opposition was evidenced to his reappointment. He remained in office for two years more, however, although neither the earlier committee recommendation to confirm nor later recommendations to reject the renomination were acted upon by the Senate as a whole. On March 2, 1921, with the accession of a hostile Republican administration two days off, he resigned. Shortly after leaving office, he charged that the Federal Reserve Board, of which he had himself been a member ex officio, had by its deflationary policies caused the disastrous decline in agricultural prices which began in 1920; he also attacked certain of the Federal Reserve banks, notably that of New York, for what he termed extravagant expenditures for buildings and salaries. His accusations formed the essential basis for a Congressional investigation, which sustained some of his charges against the Board. From public life, Williams returned to the Richmond Trust Company, serving as chairman of its board of directors until his sudden death, in 1926, at his home near Richmond, Virginia.