There being a large demand on a fund which you want to preserve, the most obvious way to preserve it is to hoard it--to get in as much as you can, and to let nothing go out which you can help.

But every banker knows that this is not the way to diminish discredit.

This discredit means, 'an opinion that you have not got any money,' and to dissipate that opinion, you must, if possible, show that you have money: you must employ it for the public benefit in order that the public may know that you have it.

The time for economy and for accumulation is before.

A good banker will have accumulated in ordinary times the reserve he is to make use of in extraordinary times.
Ordinarily discredit does not at first settle on any particular bank, still less does it at first concentrate itself on the bank or banks holding the principal cash reserve.