5
MAT 17, 1912
prorwi that ha wm advised by Roosevelt him
self to consult and be friendly with Cannon.
Roosevelt charged Taft with subserviency to
"the interest." Taft proves that Roosevelt
trhile president yielded to the demands and
failed to resent the threats of the interests that
ar now financing his campaign. Roosevelt
charged Taft with advocating tho rule of tho
people by a favored few. Taft proves that in
this Roosevelt is guilty of dollborato and con
temptible garbling of a perfectly plain and per
fectly true statement. Roosevelt charged Taft
with a reciprocity policy inimical to tho farmers'
Interests. Taft proves, that Roosevelt approved
that policy both before and after the pact with
Canada was framed. Roosevelt charged Taft
with being a weak president, falBO to "my poli
cies." Taft proyes that Roosevelt by example
and precept commended the very course that
Taft has taken. Roosevelt charged Taft with
disloyalty. Taft proves that Roosevelt has
been disloyal.
Roosevelt charged, and Taft proves. That is
the difference. In a sense both are on trial; but
in a truer sense the republican party is on trial.
If it meets the test rightly, -well and good for
all of us. If it is unequal to the test, then the
American people will soon be on trial. That is
the heritage of twelve years of Roosevelt and
his methods.
Harper's Weekly: "Who is diss yere Roose
velt, anyhow, Rastus?" asked Mrs. Rastus.
"Dat am all dependent, Dinah," said Rastus,
"on whar he is. Down in de south he's Ander
Jackson; up in do no'th he's Abraham Lincoln,
an' out in de west he's Dan'l Boone an' Davy
Crockett." 'Ah wondar who'll he be when he
gits to hebben, Rastus?" "I dun'no,' Dinah, ah
dun'no'! Ah 'spects dey'll nab to leabe dat to
a co't ob arbitration."
(Continued on Page 16.)
WHEN FIRST I BEET THEE
Sidney, Iowa, May 6 To the- Editor of tho
Omaha World-Herald: There is one of Tom
Moore's poemB, "When First I Met Thee," that
ought, to go. down to posterity labeled either as
Taft's or Roosevelt's favorite poem. When
Teddy first shied his castor into the ring I
thought the poem should be tied onto Taft, but
I notice that Roosevelt in some of his recent
speeches utters sentiments very much like those
expressed in the aforesaid poem, the first stan
zas of which are as follows:
When first I met thee, warm and young
There shone such truth .about thee,
And on thy lip such promise hung,
I did not dare to doubt thee.
I saw the change, yet still relied,
Still clung with hope the fonder,
And thought, though false to all beside,
From me thou couldst not wander.
But go, deceiver! go,
The heart whose hopes could make it
Trust one so false, so low,
Deserves that thou shouldst break it.
When every tongue thy follies named,
I fled the unwelcome story,
Or found in even the faults they blamed,
Some gleams of future glory.
I still was true, when nearer friends
Conspired to wrong, to slight thee;
The heart that now thy falsehood rends
Would there have bled to right thee.
But go, deceiver! go,
Some day perhaps thou'st waken
From glory's dream to know,
The grief of hearts forsaken.
The agonizing strain sizzles through two more
stanzas until it reaches this climax:
Go, go 'tis vain to curse,
'Tis weakness to upbraid thee;
Hate can not wish the worse
Than guilt and shame have made thee. '
J. F. LEWIS.
WILIi YOU JOIN IN THE EFFORT
TO INCREASE THE COMMONER'S CIR-
0 CULATION FOR 1912?
TAKE IT UP AT ONCE WITH YOUR
NEIGHBOR.
e
The Commoner.
Henry W. Yates Reply to the National
Citizens' League
The following is a reprint from tho Chicago
Banker:
In its issue of April 1st, "Banking Reform,"
a publication of tho National Citizens league,
Issued from Chicago, contains several broad
sides upon as many different pages in roply to
some of the objections published in pamphlet
form by the writer against tho currency and
banking schemo proposed by tho late Aldricl
monetary commission.
So much seems to bo thought of this roply
that tho league's secretary for the Nebraska
section has issued a special letter addressed to
the cashiers of Nebraska banks calling atten
tion to it and offering to supply extra copies for
their friends; also expressing the opinion "that
this reply will meet with the approval of a
large majority of Nebraska bank patrons."
In glaring headlines on the first page of tho
publication is the following:
"Mr. Yates' Attack a Confession
That Rank Assets are Not Rased
on tho Commerce of tiie Nation.
"Nebraska Banker Makes Strange Assertion
"That Bulk of Loans of Thousands
Of Interior Banks is Not on
Industrial, Commercial and
Agricultural Transactions
"Curious Money and Credit Fallacies."
The comments which these head lines pre
ceded begin with the statement that these
objections are "raised in Mr. Bryan's Com
moner," tho obvious intention being to insinu
ate a connection between Mr. Bryan and the
-writer, and perhaps class both with the "politi
cal mountebanks and financial, charlatans"
who the article Bays aro "vehemently denounc
ing" the proposed law.
Nearly everyone in my section of the coun
try; and I think many olsewhero, know how
widely tho writer has differed with Mr. Bryan
in his financial views, and the allusion can only
bo considered as along the lines of the methods
pursued by the promoters of the Aldrlch plan
to confuse tho minds of the ordinary reader
upon a subject which most of them concede to
bo too deep for them.
The quotation upon which these statements
are based is taken from an address delivered by
the writer last fall in Lincoln, and which was
published at the time in The Commoner as well
as other Lincoln papers. This is all the con
nection it had with The Commoner.
Nothing can be found in the quotation as
printed which will justify in tho remotest man
ner the assertions contained in the headlines.
On the contrary its sole basis is a juggling
with sentences which would be expected only
in the lowest type of political screed.
The quotation Is as fojlows (black faced type
added) :
"At certain seasons of tho year the interior
banks usually find it advantageous to expand
their loans. In all ordinary times they have no
difficulty in getting re-discounts from their city
correspondents. The borrowing banks do not
have to search through their bills for distinctively
.commercial paper having not more than twenty
eight days to run,- of which they would have
very little, and for acceptances and prime bills
which most of them would not have at all."
The comment is as follows:
"Why do the interior banks not have notes
and bills of exchange drawn for agricultural,
industrial and commercial purposes and not for
the purpose of carrying stocks and bonds?"
By eliminating the vitally comprehensive
words, "having not more than twenty-eight days
to run," which follow "commercial paper" with
out a punctuation sign, the forced construction
is reached that I say these banks do not have
any "commercial, industrial and agricultural
paper," whereas as a matter of fact they rarely
have any other kind of paper, and certainly few
of them ever loan for "carrying stocks and
bonds." That class of business, it is notorious,
is transacted by an entirely different class of
banks whose operations in that line in the
opinion of this writer, and many others will
be encouraged and fostered in tho practical
application of the Aldrlch plan.
In order to give an appearance of consistency
to his untrue statement, the editor answers his
own question by quoting another extract appar
ently from the same address and just as if it had
been used in tho samo connection, as follows:
Mr. Yates answers:
"The small banker has dealt with his cus
tomer as a man and not as a proporty. In
extending assistance ho has not always exacted
security, but shutting his eyes to what ho knew
did not exist, ho has taken as his sole security
tho trust and confidence he has reposed in tho
man."
This quotation, however, Is not taken from
tho "objections raised in Mr. Bryan's Com
moner," becauso it was not in that address,
but Is taken from an address delivered by tho
writer In Kansas City moro than ten years ago,
against branch banks. It has been reproduced
in a recent pamphlot containing condensod ox
tracts from a number of different addresses, and
doubtless it was from this condensation that the
quotation was obtainod.
This address was a defense of our system of
independent banks whoso existence would be
threatened by a contral bank with branches.
Tho clause in question has reference plainly in
the papor from which it is taken, to tho early
pioneer banks who come into being before
"collaterals" and "securities" have any exis
tence in their respective communities. I am
quite sure that my statement will meet with tho
unqualified assent of thousands of bankers all
over tho country. My own experience of nearly
fifty years in banking, a largo portion of which
was under pioneer conditions, has enabled me,
I think, to understand some things concerning
tho subject, that to tho editor of this so-called
Banking Reform may seem as dense as mud.
Tho clause has been forced from Its plain
connection in tho published paper and made to
do duty in an entirely different relation.
Nevertheless, even in the connection into
which it has been forced, it may bo said with
no fear of contradiction from bankers, that tho
personal equation element prevails largely In
tho business of all banks.
In fact, it may be safely declared that a com
paratively small part of tho papor to which the
reserve bank is to be restricted in ordinary
times will carry any definite or distinct col
lateral security. The larger portion will have
as its "sole security the trust and confidence
reposed" in tho makers of tho paper and tho
statements they may make.
The next broadside is as follows:
John Laws Mississippi Bubble Recalled "by
Banker's Assertions that Paper Money
Adds to Wealth."
In order to give the editor something along
his academic' line to write about, another posi
tive misstatement Is inserted here. The word
wealth does not occur in the quotation from -my
address.
This writer is well aware that the political
economist asserts what may be technically true
that oven gold coin forms no part of a nation's
wealth, but I am quite sure that most people
will say that the holder of a comfortable sum
of either gold or bank notes would bo considered
as possessing so much wealth or at least so
much capital that could bo easily employed In
tho accumulation or production of wealth.
This writer, It can be plainly seen, Is con
testing to the best of his ability a proposition
which of itself recalls, because it may repro
duce the conditions following tho bursting of
"John Laws Mississippi Bubble."
The quotation upon which the head lines aro
based is as follows:
"Paper money onco issued and absorbed be
comes a part of the actual capital of a country
and its withdrawal will have tho same effect
upon the business of the country as the with
drawal of capital in any other form than actual
currency.
"A panic is a violent and sudden obliteration
of moneyed capital. Our currency, under what
ever form it appears, has an intrinsic value of
its own."
The statements here made aro so absolutely
true when considered by tha experience of the
past (including John Laws Mississippi Bubble)
that no one would dispute them except somo
scholar, lost in the mazes of political economy
theories, and more ready to play upon the dif
ferent meanings of words, than to attempt to
fit those theories to tho actualities of life.
. A discussion along this line might be interest-
, 1 VJ.