The Journal of Banking, Volume 1 By William M. Gouge

Give me a Bank — a paper Bank,
The best machine for saving labor,
For who would toil and sweat himself,
When there’s a chance to sweat his neighbor.

Away, now, with your power-looms,
Revolving Jacks, and spinning Jennies;
Contrivances for packing wool
Can’t match the Banks for picking pennies.

“Ex nihil nihil fit,” was once
A maxim much in vogue with some;
But few indeed can now maintain
That “nothing can from nothing come.”

For though the ancients could convert
Their gold to rags, (as we are told,)
Yet we, in times more civilized
Can make from rags the best of gold.

All hail, then, glorious alchemy,
That can from nothing something make !
What pity things created thus,
Their primal form are prone to take.

So let us have a Bank, my boys !
A fortune thus we all may win:
Like lilies of the valley live,
Who “toil not, neither do they spin!”

Journal