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About The Nebraska independent. (Lincoln, Nebraska) 1896-1902 | View Entire Issue (July 2, 1896)
.7 A The Wealth Makers and Lincoln Independent Consolidated. VOL. VIII. LINCOLN, NEBR., THURSDAY, July 2,. 1896. NO. 4. BANKS They Wrecked Business and Brought Ruin to Thousands. HAVE NO BIGHT TO ISSUE NONEY That is the Sole Prerogative Government. of "I Will Vote to Wipe out Banks of Issue.' The following extracts from speeches of Senator Teller on banks and banking will be read with interest: We are here to determine what the evil is; and when we have determined that we are to remove it if we can. If it can be demonstrated here that any statute on the statute book has brought about the evil which now exists, you can get my vote to take it off. But I will not take the say-so of a New York banker; will not take the interested statements of the people who desire to be put in position where they can command all the industries of the country as they could do if they could command the money of the country. Since I have been iu public life I have had fixed and determined views as to the right of the General Government reference to the issue of its , money. ID hold, as I have on this floor many times stated, that the control of money is the prerogative of nationality and sover eignty; that no government is justified in surrendering it, not justified in surren dering it even for the most patriotic and most intelligent and helpful of all the men who could be selected; but it cannot be safely intrusted in the hands of corpor ations. It must be controlled by the general government in the main. There fore I have always given my vote against the continuation of the national banks as banks of issue. I believe as banks of deposit they have had some value, but as banks of issue none. Why are banks instituted? Not for tne benefit or the , banters. They are quasi-public concerns, instituted for the benefit of the public. Banks have three great functions: First to receive the money of the people and keep it safely until they call for it; secondly, to pay it out when the people demand it. Another function is to transmit the money by bills of exchange from one part of the country to another. I think perhaps I should properly say there are but two functions of the banks, because the re ceiving and the payment may be said to be one. Those are the functions of a bank How have they discharged their func tions? When a bank takes money and puts it in its coffers, unless the depositor makes a contract otherwise, it is paya ble on demand. Today, in the greatest city on the continent, no matter how much or how little money a man has on deposit, he is absolutely debarred by the rules of forty-six or forty-eight different banks of that city from drawing it. lie is told, with an impudence which has never before been exercised even by banks, that he connot have it. Mr. Ueorge. W hat do the banks ao with ihe money? Mr. Teller. I understand that when a man goes to a bank and draws his check and says, "I want my funds which were deposited with you, say last winter or last spring," the officers of the bank say to him, "we will give you an account. we will certify a check, we will say that sometime (no time being fixed) we will pay you, but we will not pay you now If that is not an act of insolvency, no bank ever committed one. One hundred and forty banks in other parts of the country within the last three months have closed their doors be cause they were compelled to say that to their creditors; and yet the great banks of the city of New York, with an impu dence and effrontery almost unheard of, have declared that they will not recog- nize Ithe Lht of a depositor to claim his money n demand. NEW Yi jtR AND THE OUTSIDE BANKS, The banks have another function, wnicn is to transmit monev from one bank to another. Commerce can scarce ly be carried on unless that function is in active force. Business cannot be done between New Orleans and Chicago and New Orleans and New York, and all around unless bills of exchange can be used. They are the agencies of com merce. Have these banks fulfilled that func tion? For more thau six weeks the banks of the city of New York, and other cities which I might mention, have simply de clined to pay drafts drawn on them by outside banks for the money that those Danks nave on deposit. Between a city that is entered by at least six railroad trains a day, and can be reached in twenty-four hours, and the city of New York the rates of exchange have been $3 on the hundred; and between the city of New York and the city of Philadelphia there has been an absolute refusal on the part of the'banks of Philadelphia to pay drafts on the city of New York in , any kind of money. I have in my drawer here a letter from 1 a western banker, who tells me that i through his bank he had a draft of $7, ) 000 on a Philadelphia bank, which he ' sent to a bank in the city of New York, and the bank there returned it to bim saying: "We will present no drafts to the banks of Philadelphia, because they de cline to pay." Then through other agencies, this banker sent his draft to Philadelphia for money admitted to be long to the drawer, and the banks of Philadelphia simply said: "We cannot afford to pay this, and we will not pay it." The other morning when the senator from Kansas Mr. Peffer introduced a resolution here making an inquiry con cerning the banks, there was fright in this chamber, and we were told that we were going to disturb the banks. Mr. President, there is not a bank boy or a page boy who runs the errands for a bank in Chicago who does not know that the banks of New York have sus pended; there is not such a boy in the city of New Orleans who does not know that the banks of New York have sus pended. It is public talk everywhere. You cannot frighten the people anymore than they have been frightened by that kind of conduct. These banks have abandoned their functions as banks of deposit; they have declined to perform the functions im posed upon them by law, with the money in their tills. They have broken down as banks of exchange. They have declined to keep the business of the country in motion. Is it any wonder then that there is stagnation in com mercial circles when men who own the money cannot draw it from the banks where they have deposited it, and men who owe debts cannot transmit the money wherewith to pay in such a way as that they will be sure it will reach their customers? This may be an attack upon banks. I shall htar tomorrow from the public press of New York that we are attacking the banks. If these facts were unknown it might possibly be said that it was not worth while, in an excited state of af fairs, to talk about them. But every body is aware of them. I again call the attention of the sen ate to the conduct of the banks in the early part of the spring just before the adjournment of congress, when they be gan to "hold up," if I may use a west ern phrase, the treasury department in order to compel it to issue bonds. They then stated . to the department, "We will give you a little money," and they gave it; "You can not have any more, and if you touch the reserve, if you get below the auiouut which has been held in the treasury, there will be a financial panic and convulsion, and you dare not do that." The 8100,000,000 reserve ran down to $90,000,000, but the world did not come to an end. Business was infinitely better than it was a few .days ago when the reserve was over 8100,000,000. Thev did not succeed in securincr from congress $200,000,000 of gold bonds or any other kind of bonds upon which they could bank. THE SCHEME OF THE BANKERS. I may safely assume that the opinion is very general in the country that a scheme was organized early in the sea son in New York for the purpose of cre ating a financial panic which would com pel an extra session of congress for the repeal of the Sherman purchasing act, and I think the well-known, undisputed utterances of the . executive and the con duct of the secretary of the treasury bear out the inference that it was not to be the act of the banks alone, but that when the New York Sun says that the bankers were to work not only in New York, but elsewhere with the administra tion, it spoke by authority. I would not have anyone infer that I believe the bankers of New York intend ed to create just ttie condition of effairs that now exists. I think they under took to create a distrust and disturb ance in the country that would justify the president in calling congress at an extraordinary time, and thus secure action, first, on the purchase bill; sec ondly, on the proposition suggested by the senator from Ohio, and suggested by them in their conference of bankers with the secretary last spring the issu ance of a large amount of government bonds, upon which they could continue to do banking business. This panicgot away with them a little. They rather overdid the business and frightened the people beyond even what they had intended. However they are responsible for the condition, and if they get hurt, they ought not to complain. 1 stated yesterday that banks have I two great functions one to receive money and pay it out, and the other to transmit money from one section of the1 country to the other by way of bills of exchange. I demonstrated that the banks of New York City, Philadelphia, Uoston, and of, perhaps, some other cities, have absolutely broken down as banks of deposit or banks of exchange. CIRCULATION. There is another function for national banks and that is to maintain a circu lation for the people. That was one of the great purposes for which these banks were organized in 1864. We were told then as we have been told since, as we were told by official utterances as late as last December, that the banks of the country were ready and willing, or would be when properly organized to furnish to the people of the United States a su ciency of the currency which should be always as good as gold. Ihere are two things with reference to the currency that the people are partic ularly interested in; and which of the two they are interested in most it would be somewhat difficult to sav. They are in terested primarily, I suppose, that there shall be a sufficiency of money, for by a sufficiency of money, only can you main tain prices. By a sufficiency of money only can you maintain the equity of con tracts. They are also interested that it shall be good money: that if the banks undertake to issue circulation it shall be as good as any money the government issues. I propose to deal with these banks for a few moments as banks of issue, and I think I can demonstrate very satisfac torily to everybody that as banks of is sue, they have been as great failures as they have been as banks of deposit and banks of exchange. LHere follows a technical discussion, more appropriate for a scientific work than a newspaper, demonstrating their complete failure to furnish a proper amount of circulation. TIME TO REFORM. Iam opposed to the extension of the (Continued on 6th page.) DECLARES A Free Silver Democratic Candidate Will be Snowed Under. PEOPLES PABTYT0G0 IT ALONE The Democrats Will be Third In Al States West of the Mississippi. It Will Lose 80 Per Cent of Its Voters Who Favor Gold and Gain Few Silver Votes. i.ne JNew lork world has been re questing statements from prominent men of all parties. Chairman Taube- neck sent them the following: St. Louis, June 20. The republican party cannot secure a single elector in any state west of the Mississippi river if the silver republicans and populists combine on a national ticket, which have no doubt they will do. ine silver democrats cannot carry more than half of the southern states without the aid of the populists and eil B. E. TAUBENECK. ver republicans. The moment the Chica go convention declares for silver, 16 to 1, the democrats will lose at least 20 per cent of tijeir strength, which is the sound money element who will vote the republican ticket or remain at home on election day. vV ith a loss of 20 per cent the states of Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia will give their electors to the republicans. The same loss in Texas, Alabama, Georgia and North Carolina will give those states to the populists. in all the old republican states west of the Mississippi river, with the exception of Iowa and California, the democratic party is the insignificant third party. while the peoples party is the strong second party. The democrats cannot secure a single elector from any of these states without co-operating with the populists, nor can they elect their state and congressional tickets. o president who favors the free coin age of silver at 16 to 1 can be elected in 1896 without the assistance and undi vided support of the peoples party. 11. L. Taubenpck. Chairman Peoples Party National Com mute. Iu the New York World of June 24 there is a further statement from Mr. Taubeneck in which he is reported as follows: Henry h. Taubeneck, chairman of the populist national committee, said today mat nis party wouia not accent an o d line democrat as a candidate for presi .dent. "Do you consider Bland an old-line democrat, and would you support him 11 nominated "Bland is an old line democrat. I do not believe he would receive the vote of the populists or of the silver republicans ror the reasons l have already stated Lnless the demqerats see things in this light we will hold our convention in St. Louis and nominate our candidates for president and vice-president on a distinct platform. 1 would deplore such a condi tion. It may defer the triumph of silver lour years longer, but it will sweep the democratic party out of existence and leave the peoples party to throttle the republican party four years hence. I have reason to think that Blackburn of Kentucky, Jones of Arkansas, Bankhead of Alabama, Daniels of Virginia, and other southern senators and representa tives are inclined toward Teller and a single currency plank platform. I shall be in Chicago during the democratic convention. There will be ample time before nominations are made to lay be fore them reasons which should make them meet us half way." HE LIED TO THE PEOPLE And Now Parson Andrews Will Have to Give Way for a Populist. A preacher by the name of Andrews, who, it will be remembered, was elected te congress here a couple of years ago, has admitted to some intimate friends that he is feeling mighty "shaky," and entertains some very grave fears ot de feat in the coming campaign. But this is no news to the people of the big Fifth. The best men of every party are fully aware of the peril ous route the parson is compelled to travel in submitting his claims to the people for re-election. They know he is against bimetallism the vital question now regnant in the whole west and south the issue which he pretended to favor until elected. They also know be voted for bonds, after telling his constituents that a man who would rote tor bonds in time of peace is a traitor to his country; they know that instead of being honor able he has been corrupt; they know he has lied to the poor people of this dis trict, to gain their confidence for the gratification of a personal ambition they know that on the last hour of con gress he introduced a sickly bill for th coinage of "domestic" silver; and that by his oollusiou with the moneyed class he has forfeited the right to ask the sup port ot tne debt-burdened and distressed people who desire a faithful public ser vant. It is but natural, therefore, that all eyes are turned upon the bimetallic forces the populist party anxiously awaiting the development of conditions which will plant their leader squarely in the tleld of the people s rights. The people of this district never did better thing than when they sent the late Wm. A. McKeighan to congress.aud the sighs of regret on every side indicate a disposition to triumphantly elect an other man of his principle this fall. There are numerous brainy populists sincere and honorable, who have been mentioned favorably for congressional honors. Among them, Prof. Jones Judge Thompson, It. D. Sutherland, fig ure most prominently. Ked Cloud Na tion. HARVEY'S ANSWER. What He Has to Say of Whitney'i Statement. Chicago, June 22. My answer to Mr. Whitney's statement, that the election of a free coiuage president and congress would plunge the country in ruin is as follows: On the election of a president and con gres in November committed to free coinage, the danger of a panic will pass in a day. We will cross the danger line the moment that fact is known. The next day silver will begin to advance and gold to decline. Declining gold will coine out from its hiding in a few days after the election, in a hurry to seek in vestments and will go actively into cir culation. It will seek to invest itself in the things that are rising, for it will fall in value. This is a law inexorable as any of the certain laws of trade. 1 be wheat iu existence is sure to fall in value when it is known that a large new crop is com- ng; the effect is felt before the crop is harvested. So it will be with gold when it is known that a new crop of money is coming. Air. Whitney s statement ot predicted ruin is the threat of Wall street and is intended to frighten business men and to intimidate the people. If it is true that the money power can do what is threatened, it is a sufficient reas on for its overthrow, for treating it as the enemy of the republic. W. 11. HARVEY. Author of "Coin's Financial School.' MORE WALL STEET THREATS. Come On The West and South are Ready for You. Now comes the New York Journal con taining an interview of a New York dera ocrat with Julius Chambers, a Washing ton correspondent, in which the New Yorker says: , "The western and southern men of our party are certainly out of their minds, ihey never have felt the weight of the commercial interests of the east arrayed solidly against them. The green- backers and populists, siiventes and grangers never have withstood a cavalry charge by the combined money interests of the country. "Ihey will see it in November. The south will suffer most, I fear. Its loans will be called to the last dollar. Its cot ton will be left to rot in the compresses, because the railroads that are owned and operated by eastern capitalists, in a majority of cases at a loss, will refuse to carry it. In the west every mortgage that is held against every farm in the silver states will be foreclosed. All lines of credit for dry goods and groceries in these independent regions will be closed, because the eastern bankers and mer chants regard the silver movement as absolutely dangerous to the financial future of the country." Let them try it The eastern states on t raise enough to feed themselves three months out of the year. If they don't get our beef, pork, corn, cotton and wool they can go naked, freeze and starve. They will get no more interest money, either. Ed. Independent. Will We Join His Party. Austin, Texas, June 22. The Demo cratic cougressional convention for this the ninth congressional district, met here today and renominated Joseph D. Say- ers. lie addressed the convention and tated that lie was unequivocally for free coinage at 16 to land that that issue was the only one on which he dif fered from Cleveland, lie also said there was no political doctrino that he would ot advocate and no political rartv he would not support rather than see the populists gain control of the government. Populist Indorse Teller. Spokane, Wash., June 23. The Spo kane county populist convention, held today to select two delegates to St. Louis, declared for free silver and in dorsed II. M. Teller for president. H. N. Maguire and C. W' Bushnall were chosen as delegates. AMERICAN SILVERDNION An Address to the Nebraska. People of THREE-FOURTHS FOB SILVER. Will This Immense Majority Given Expression at the Polls. be The Fight of Old Wan to Make Men This is to Keep Them no. Free American Silver League, Ileadquart ers lor Nebraska. Lincoln, Neb., June 18, 1896. To all unconditional friends of silver i Nebraska: Two of the existing national political parties of the United States have held their conventions, nominated their candidates and defined their pol 1C10S. une ot these parties has declared .in favor of the existing gold standard and against the free coinage of silver as standard money. mi i . . . meouier party has divided on that issue, the east against the west practic any, and has begun the canvas for the presidency with two tickets asking the suffrages of the people. Another of the great political parties will hold its national convention July 7, next, and sufficient is now known to warrant the conclusion that, that party will declare for the free coinage of silver at the, present legal ratio of 16 to 1 without waiting for the consent of other nations. concurrence or A fourth national party, controlling more than 2,000,000 votes will hold its convention July 22, 1896, a party that has always advocated the unrestricted coinage of silver as primary money on equal terms with gold. It appears therefore that of the four national parties, two will declare un equivocally for free coinage of silver, and that ou that question the prohibition party is about equally divided. It is unquestionably true that three fourths of the people of the United States favor the free coinage of silver as against the existing gold standard. Whether the will of this immense and earnest majority can be given effective expression at the polls next November is the question of supreme importance then to be settled by the American people. me American silver organization is not a new party and may never be pome a party, its purpose and aim being to aid in securing unity oi action, that those who think alike may be induced to vote alike and by so doing clothe with official power the voice and the will of the great middle and industrial classes who now toil without profit, that others may pront without toil The organization will hold a national conference in St. Louis, July 22. 1896. wherein Nebraska will be entitled to fifty-one reprsentatives, to be selected without regard to former political affil iations, nationality, creed or color. It is desired that the representatives shall be men of broad and liberal views who love their country and their kind, who can sink the partisan in tne patriot and who can lorget all personal considera tions and unselfishly serve God and hu manity in this hour of our national peril and distress. .... The question has been asked in this state, "what would be the effect in this country -on unborn generations, if, at the close of the nineteenth century, the people of the United States became so corrupt that they repudiated one half of their debts by paying them in money worth only halt of its face value?" Let ten million freemen answer in November, "We will pay all our honest debts as honest men with honest money, in full and complete compliance with our con tract, but we will not basely surrender our homes and our liberties to exact- rig Shylocks.native orforeign.who know no country, serve under no flag.are loyal to no yarty and who have no sympathy with mankind." If there is no danger along the lines suggested, then there is no wisdom in the repeated warning given us by our states men and patriots in the past. Daniel Webster said: "Liberty cannot long endure where the tendency is to concentrate wealth in the hands of the few." Wealth is so concentrating and the power and spirit to resist its encroach ments are growing less, because of en forced idleness and poverty. James A. Garfield said: "Whoever con trols the volume of money of any coun try is absolute master of all industry and all commerce." Does not Wall street control the volume of money of this country? Ihomas Jefferson said: "I believe banking institutions are more danger ous to our liberty thanstandiugarmies." He also said: "They (the banks) have already raised a money aristocracy which has set the government at de fiance." And so tbey have. Henry Clews, the WhII street broker, in his financial circular, speaking for Wall street, May 24, 1896, says: "Wall street as learned to believe that there are greater potencies than party platforms, than legislative subserviency to popular ignorance," meaning legislative enact ments of the popular will. Again Mr. Clews says: "The near prospect of the authorization of free coinage, a counting of heads showing a certainty of two thirds vote in the house and in tbe sen ate for sixteen to one would evoke in Wall street the kind of condi ons that INDEPENDENT INDEX. Paw 1 Teller on Banks. Taubeneck's Declaration. He lied to the people. Harvey's answer. . More Wall Street Throat. Will We Join Die Party! Popullstslndorse Teller. . . American Silver Union. Pae J ' Populist State Convention. Lancaster Comity Populist Convention. State Central Committee. Sovereign for Tel lor, Greenbacks and Silver In London. Is Teller Our Moses f Page g Associated Press Reports. Markets. Page 4 Editorial. ' Miscellany. at Chicago. Washington Politics. Now for Union. Lincoln Foretold it. Ex-Senator Ingalls Bolts. Populists and Silver. PageU Nebraska Crop Report. Denel County Described. Cattle and Sheep Raising. Populists Will Contests. Page 7 ' No Use for Money. Our Messenger's Wanderings. Gone to Her Long Home. Spicy Short Items. Pages- Insurance Miscellany. no congress has ever yet dared to disre gard, and the cause of freecoinage would ds overthrown at the moment when its success seemed most certain. It is this reserve power on which Wall street is now relying," And what is this "reserve power on which Wall street is relyinar?" Evident ly the power to control the money of the country and with it "all commerce and trade," the power to inaugurate another panic, as was done in 1893, compared to wnicn Tne aangers oi jenerson s stand ing army are as a dream. , An invading army ui nan a mimon men in a cam paign of years could not work the ruin to the people of the United States that the panic of 1893 has wrought, and yet vau street boldly asserts that, should the people of this country elect a con gress that could pass a free coinage bill over a presidential veto, Wall street would overthrow the legally declared will of the people by "invoking a pqwer that no congress has ever yet dared to disregard." With a knowledge of these treasonable utterances and the well known fact that congress repealed the Sherman law at the demands of Wall street, the question suggests itself, "Who rules the American republic?" March 11 1896, New York bankers sent out a circular to all banker in the United States, urging them irrespective of party affiliations to see that none but "sound money," gold standard dele gates were elected to any of tbe great party conventions. 1'erhaps not in answer to this rennesf but a mere coincidence, that the one hundred and fifty thousand farmers of the state of Nebraska were represented in the St. Louis convention by twelve bankers and lawyers, two merchants.one stock raiser and one city official, as gathered from the state press. And this very able delegation selected as the Nebraska member of the national committee on resolutions the one man on that delegation who declared that he was in favor of tbe existing trold stan dard and opposed to the free coinage of silver, and that he believed the conven tion platform ought to say so. All honor to Peter Jensen for this uneoui vo cal declaration of his convictions. "God hates a coward," he said, "and tbe peo ple admire courage," and so they do. JNo larmer s voice was heard on that delegation. Did the price of gold stan dard wheat shut out the Farmer vote? If so, who governs Nebraska? The peo ple or Wall street? As to our money, it is claimed on as good authority as any that the coin money of the world amounts to about 8,000,000,000 abou t f 4,000,000,000 in gold and about $4,000,000,000 in silver. Should one-half the volume of this money be destroyed in any way, the value or purchasing power of the re maining half would be doubled, and the value of all property would be divided by tTo, or reduced one-half. When silver was demonetized gold was the standard money for less than forty millions of people, bold is now doing the work for more than two hundred mil- ions. Uence an increased demand and advancing standard of money value and decreasing property value. It is not claimed that one-half of the money of the world has been destroyed by the de monetization of silver, but as just stated the demand for gold has been more than doubled by the demands made on that metal by Russia, Italy, and by some other countries for storing, and by indi viduals for hoarding, because of the los" profit in all business enterprises caused by declining prices, bad debts and shrinking volume of trade. i o stop this ruinous decline in prices, and to check the rise in the price of gold let the mints of the United States be opened to the free coinage of silver, thereby adding to the world's supply of money and lessening the purchasing power of gold. No party in this country has ever dared to declare unequivocally against bimetallism. In 1888 the republican party in national convention demanded the use of both gold and silver as money," and condemned the democratic party then in power "for its enorts to demonetize silver." Yet the republican (Continued on 3th page.)