The people did not like to be summoned
to attend the settlement of an estate in bankruptcy, hundreds
and hundreds of miles, to the place where the United States
Court was sitting, in States like Texas or Missouri. The
sympathy of many communities is apt to be with the debtor,
and not with the creditors, who were represented as harpies
or vultures preying on the flesh of their unfortunate victims.
A good example of this prejudice will be found in an extract
from the speech of Senator Ingalls, of Kansas. He said in
defending what was known as the equity scheme:
"The opposition arose first, from the great wholesale merchants
in the chief distributing centres of the country. They have
their agents and attorneys in the vicinity of every debtor,
obtaining early information of approaching disaster, and ready
to avail themselves of the local machinery of State courts
by attachment or by preferences, through which they can secure
full payment of their claims, to the exclusion of less powerful
or less vigilant but equally meritorious creditors. Naturally
they want no Bankrupt law of any description.
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