Peoples National Bank Conway

Peoples National Bank Conway

Peoples National Bank Conway

The 2008 financial crisis rekindled America’s interest in the 1929 bank failures, but it could also revive interest in the debates that accompanied the founding of the American bank system in 1791. At that time New York Physican David Hosack warned that eventually banks would own individual Americans.

It was an unusual position for a friend and personal physician of Alexander Hamilton, the father of the American banking system. In the Public Broadcasting System’s (PBS) classic "American Experience" television series, Hosack is shown saying:

"The evil of a bank is not at first obvious. It is one of those sly and subtle movements that marches slowly to its goal. One morning, Americans will wake to find not that they own the bank, but that the bank owns them."