○  名人演讲：the banking crisis  ○

a comparatively small part of the money that you put into the bank is kept in currency -- an amount which in normal times is wholly sufficient to cover the cash needs of the average citizen. in other words, the total amount of all the currency in the country is only a comparatively small proportion of the total deposits in all the banks of the country.

what, then, happened during the last few days of february and the first few days of march? because of undermined confidence on the part of the public, there was a general rush by a large portion of our population to turn bank deposits into currency or gold -- a rush so great that the soundest banks couldn't get enough currency to meet the demand. the reason for this was that on the spur of the moment it was, of course, impossible to sell perfectly sound assets of a bank and convert them into cash, except at panic prices far below their real value. by the afternoon of march third, a week ago last friday, scarcely a bank in the country was open to do business. proclamations closing them, in whole or in part, had been issued by the governors in almost all the states. it was then that i issued the proclamation providing for the national bank holiday, and this was the first step in the government’s reconstruction of our financial and economic fabric.

the second step, last thursday, was the legislation promptly and patriotically passed by the congress confirming my proclamation and broadening my powers so that it became possible in view of the requirement of time to extend the holiday and lift the ban of that holiday gradually in the days to come. this law also gave authority to develop a program of rehabilitation of our banking facilities. and i want to tell our citizens in every part of the nation that the national congress -- republicans and democrats alike -- showed by this action a devotion to public welfare and a realization of the emergency and the necessity for s

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