[originaltext] Banks are not ordinarily prepared to pay out all accounts; th

Banks are not ordinarily prepared to pay out all accounts; they rely on their clients not to demand payment all at the same time. If clients come to fear that a bank cannot pay off all its clients, then that might cause all the clients to appear on the same day, thus the bank run happens. If they did, the bank could not pay all accounts. However, if they did not all appear at once, then there would always be enough money to pay those who wanted their money. One day in December of 1925 several banks failed to open in a city where Mrs. Vaught lived. The other banks expected a run the next day, and so the officers of the bank in which Mrs. Vaught worked as a teller had enough money on hand to pay off their clients. The officers simply told the tellers to pay on demand. The next morning a crowd gathered in the bank and on the sidewalk outside. The length of the line made many think that the bank could not possibly pay off everyone. People began to push and then to fight for places near the tellers’ windows. The power of the panic atmosphere was such that two tellers, though they knew that the bank was quite all right and could pay all clients, drew their own money from the bank. Mrs. Vaught says that she had difficulty keeping herself from doing the same.