ABSTRACT
So far as finance is concerned the most important cleavage has been the one between “creditor regions,” supporters of “sound money” and of an effective centralized control of banking operations, and “debtor regions,” partisans of “cheap money” and advocates of the largest practicable degree of freedom in the establishing and operating of banks. The recurrent “cheap money” movements that have characterized the political history of the United States have sprung from the fact that the opening up and developing of new lands have called for expenditures of capital in amounts far beyond the resources of the actual settlers. New regions have generally been debtor regions, and there is more than mere coincidence in the fact that demands for cheap money have always been voiced most loudly on the frontier.
