In 1878, the yellow fever epidemic struck the Mississippi valley. The public was compacent. "The disease, carried by mosiquitos, broke out on the Gulf Coast and slowly worked its way up the river to memphis, Tennessee. The people in Memphis knew in advance that the epidemic was coming. They knew approximately when it would arrive. They knew it would kill them. The government and the media said, 'Don't panic . Everything will be all right.' "Pacified by these assurances, most of the people (believing that the government would never let something like that happen) stayed in the city. Fifty-five percent of the population died. The city of Memphis was de-established as a political entity and was not re-chartered for 14 years."

Any similarities to anything that might be approaching?

Two other quotes:

"In reading the history of nations, we find that like individuals, they have their whims and peculiarities; their seasons of excitement and recklessness, when they care not what they do. We find that whole communities suddenly fix their minds upon one object (money) and go mad in its pursuit; that millions of people become simultaneously impressed (tulip mania 1600's) with one delusion, and run after it, till their attention is caught by some new folly more captivating than the first....Anyone taken as an individual is tolerably sensible and reasonable- as a member of a crowd, he at once becomes a blockhead." SCHILLER's dictum

" Money ...has often been a cause of the delusion of the mutitudes. Sober nations have all at once become desperate gamblers, and risked almost their entire existence upon the turn of a PIECE OF PAPER...Men , it has been well said, think in herds, it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recver their senses slowly, and one by one." charles Mackay "Extraordinary Popular delusions and the Madness of Crowds." The above were taken in part from Don S. McAlvaney.

Lastly, I possess a picture circa 1930's of a street sweeper in Budapest...the large picture shows a crudely fashioned broom . The sweeper is gathering together crumpled currency on the ground along with other sorted debris....no one is clamouring to pick up the fiat money....Are the assurances of society nothing more than "FIAT confidence?"

You decide .... In Him, my friends. 2 cor. 5:21

-- EJH (hilgendorf-e@mail.mssc.edu), October 25, 1999

Answers

Memphis sure does sound like the US today... Is there any hope for a change in the future?

-- Mad Monk (madmonk@hawaiian.net), October 27, 1999.