Senator Overman has given the best advice we have yet seen
to those of us who are apprehensive about the financial situation and that is
“sit steady and don’t rock the boat.” Those who see trouble and distress ahead
are rocking the boat. Calamity howling is the most contagious thing in the
world. Our leading financiers in a time like this are unusually pessimistic.
They have more reason to be perhaps than others, for they have more at stake;
but the more they complain and the louder they prophesy evil, the harder they
have made their own path. A sunny temper and a hopeful smile are worth more
than silver and gold when the financial clouds hang low. To sit steady now
requires a good deal of fortitude, but everything depends on it. It is folly to
rock the boat. Let the waves do that. Besides, no man knows what the outcome of
all our trouble will be. The war may end as suddenly as it began. It is too
bloody and brutal to last very long. When peace is made, business will pick up,
confidence will be restored and good times will break upon us like the breaking
of the day.
Cotton will not be a profitable crop this year. It cannot be
[because buyers in Europe are at war and are not buying], but the likelihood
that it will bring at least 8 cents. Creditors must be patient. They cannot
afford to rock the boat either. We do not need a moratorium. A law enacted for
the purpose of dodging a debt or even to defer the payment of it would
demoralize our society and work untold injury. It will be a thousand fold
better if our people will agree to be patient with each other and try and
adjust themselves to the peculiar financial conditions that surround us. Frenzy
never solved any sort of a problem, financial or otherwise. It is a bad time to
get rattled and lose reason. Now is the time for poise and sanity and clear,
honest thinking. And never forget that the darkest hour is just before the
dawn.
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