“In the year 1861 I compiled a table showing at a glance the total receipts of the national banks on two different days, and the proportion of these receipts by the banks in the various cities. These returns show that while the total receipts upon a certain day were $295,000,000, the receipts of forty-eight banks in the city of New York were $165,000,000, or nearly 56 per cent. of the whole. The receipts of the four great cities of New York, Philadelphia, Boston, and Chicago, comprised nearly four fifths of the total receipts on June 30, 1881, and nearly three fourths of the total on September 17, 1881; while the sixteen reserved cities on June 30th were more than 85 per cent., and on September 17th more than 82 per cent., of the whole amount.
“These facts show how closely connected is the business of the banks elsewhere with the great commercial cities of the East. Nearly every bank and banker located in all the principal cities and villages of the country have deposits subject to sight draft in New York. Every mail not only brings remittances from neighboring cities, but from the most inaccessible points in the country. To-day a single roadside tavern or outpost upon the great plains of the frontier; to-morrow a railroad is constructed, and in place of the tavern of the frontiersman or the military outpost, there is the city of Cheyenne in the embryo State of Wyoming, or the city of Bismarck in the new State of Dakota, or the city of Winnipeg in the Provinces of Manitoba. And almost on the day of the birth of these young cities or villages, banks are organized under the authority of the laws of the United States or Canada, which are almost immediately thereafter brought into close communication with some correspondent in New York.
“The East sympathizes with you in your growth, and receives substantial profit from that source. New York, as well as Chicago, is your market, and the effect of good crops in all sections of the West is felt in New York as surely as in your Western cities. The progress and prosperity of the West increases largely the progress and prosperity of the East. For more than a half century--for more than eighty years--the East has been sending a portion of its surplus here for investment. It had its early losses, but its gains have been large, which is evident from the fact that it has never for a single year ceased to send, not only its people here, to find homes in the new States, but it has increased its Western investments annually. A few years ago tables were made showing the distribution of national-bank stock throughout the country, from which it was found that a large portion--say about one eighth--of the stock of these new institutions in the West was held in the East. If it were possible it would be most interesting to obtain similar figures in reference to the holdings of the East in your railroad and other transportation companies, and in your industries of various kinds. It is known that the East in many instances holds a majority of the stock in your greatest companies, and annually elects the officers of such corporations. The interest upon the bonds, almost without exception, of all your Western corporations, is payable in New York, and to considerable extent to Eastern owners. You have grown rich; but we of the East are your co-partners in business, and notwithstanding your riches, we give notice that we do not intend there shall be any DISSOLUTION OF THE CO-PARTNERSHIP.