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About The commoner. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-1923 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 1, 1915)
The Commoner OCTOBER, 1915 9 c . Bank Usury Bared by Comptroller Following is an Associated Press dispatch: Frankfort, Ky., Oct. 6. John Skelton WB llama, comptroller of tho currency, defended to day before tho Kentucky Bankers' association his efforts to force national banks to reduce their Interest charges to borrowers during the days of stress in the financial and business world, which followed the outbreak of the European war. Of tho 7,615 national banks In the country Mr. Williams declared, 1,020' hare sent in de tailed reports showing that they have received an average of 10 per cent or more oh loans. He cited, without giving names, instances in which the rate ran up to 40, 60, 1,000 per cent In ono case that of a woman who borrowed $3.50 for six days he said, the bank charged' $1, or 2,400 per cent. "These banks," said Mr. Williams, "are au thorized by the government. To an extent at least, they have behind them the sanction, the prestige and the protection of the great American nation and lending $3.50 for six days to a washerwoman or a laborer's or a farmer's wife at 2,400 per cent. MAKES ANARCHISTS SILENTLY "As somebody once said of druggists' profits on powdered chalk, it gets out of tho range of percentage into larceny from the person. Three hundred per cent will make anarchists silently, faster than all the I. W. W. apostles who can bawl. When national banks chartered by tho government disappoint and deprive toil of its just reward, and stimulate resentment, we have prepared and fertilized the soil for a fearful crop of disaster. We can not persuade ourselves or make others believe It is right or safe for banks to charge 100 per cent a year, while the producing people about them are, kept poor. I know of such banks. I do not intend to stand for them if I can help it. The country will not stand for them." , , Mr. Williams saidjhe invited senate investiga tion o his actions or the conduct of. his office. "A Majority' of 'the national banks are now conducting their business on a high and honor able plane and are "charging fair and reasonable rates on loans," Mr. Wlllfams sa.id. He predict ed that a well-thought-out, carefully constructed, conservative system of rural credits for the de velopment of agriculture would come presently and said that in tho meantime he expected to do all possible to protect borrowers of all grades against rapacity. He asked the co-operation of all banks further to improve conditions. The figures he quoted, Mr. Williams said, were taken from the reports of national banks, "not pawnbrokers or recognized money sharks." "These banks know," he said, "and you and I know that such rates are disreputable and with out excuse, whatever the security for the loans may be. The bank that lends at such rates is destroying its constituency and is at the same time committing slow but sure suicide. Some reports from the south and west, the northwest and the southwest, especially in the wheat and cotton sections of the southwest, are blood curdling. They are like stories from darkest Russia, of the oppressions inflicted upon the peasantry. The reports received at the comp troller's office show indisputably that in some states and sections borrowers and especially small borrowers, have been and are being sub jected to extortions and exactions which the av erage man would consider impossible in this en lightened age." Mr. Williams devoted much of his time to an swering criticisms of his action in regard to lower interest rates by Senator Weeks of Massa chusetts in a recent speech before Michigan bankers. He declared Senator Weeks had said that the banker himself was the man to deter mine interest rates, and in reply read a list of banks which showed an average rate of more than 10 per cent. It included two banks in Illi nois, six in Minnesota, two in Missouri, 23 in Georgia, six in Florida, 21 in Alabama, two in Lou'siana, 315 in Texas, 17 in Arkansas, three in Tennessee, 90 in North Dakota, 25 in South Dakota, 18 In Nebraska, five in Kansas, 38 in Montana, 14 in Wyoming, 37 in Colorado, 25 in New Mexico, 300 in Oklahoma, 12 in Washing ton, 10 in Oregon, 13 in California, two in Utah, ono in Nevada and 33 in Idaho. In one southwestern state, said Mr. Williams, 131 banks reported they charged a maximum rate i of interest of from 15 to 34 per cent: 17 banks a maximum between 26 and 0 per centj J banks a maximum between ( per cent and 100 per cent, 18 between 100 and 200 per cent, and eight between 200 and 2,000 per cent, . "Most of these disgraceful rates," said tie comptroller, "were for comparatively small loans." The legal rate in the state, he pointed out, was 6 per cent and the maximum authorized by special contract 10 per cent. ' Mr. Williams reviewed the financial situation through the first year of the European war. He said that this country had not only avoided a financial crash, but had wiped out the floating debt of $360,000,000 duo to Europe January 1, 1915, and absorbed between 760 and 1,000 mil lions of dollars of American securities that were held abroad, and now is in condition to help fi nance the world at the conclusion of the war. Ho presented as a fact that the United States was now in position to buy back the American securities held in foreign lands, if they should be offered, but that "Europe had come to realize that America la the most stable country on earth," and that investors there cling to American securities as likely to be tho best real values, "as tho American dollar has become the world's standard of value because it commands the world's faith." GOLD SUPPLY OF THE UNITED STATES Giving figures to substantiate this assurance, tho comptroller said "the estimated gold supply of tho United States in gold coin and bullion is more than $2,000,000,000, of which state and national banks hold $1,000,000,000, and the federal reserve banksand tho treasury $640, 000,000, leaving morethan $400,000,000 in the pockets of the people. At no time in recorded history have the banks of any country held such resources as the banks of this country hold to day." Deposits in aU the banks in the United States, including trust companies, had, in the past fifteen years, increased at the average rate of about a billion dollars a year, he said. The income of the people of the United States over the expenses of living and available for de velopment and investment amounts to 6,000 mil lions, of dollars per annum, Mr. Williams said, and he placed the total at 30,000 millions a year. ' He said the total wealth of the United States, is now estimated at 210 billions, as compared with 76 billions as the total wealth of Germany in 1911; 65 billions, the total wealth of France in 1908, and 108 billions, the wealth of tho whole British Empire, including tho United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, India and South Africa, by the latest available computation, that of 1903. PRESDDENT TO NAVAJj ADVISORY BOARD In his address to the advisory board, at Its first gathering in Washington, October 6, Presi dent Wilson said: "There is very little that I can say to you, except to give you a very cordial welcome and to express my very great pleasure to this associa tion of laymen with tho government. But I do want to say this: "I think tho whole nation is convinced that wo ought to be prepared, not for. war, but for defense, and very adequately prepared; and that the preparation for defense is not merely a tech nical matter, it is not a matter that the army and navy alone can take care of, but a matter In which we must have the co-operation of the best brains and knowledge of the country outside the official service of the government as well as in side. For my part, I feel that it is only in the spirit of a true democracy that we get together to lend such voluntary aid, the sort of aid that comes from Interest, from a knowledge of the varied circumstances that are involved In hand ling a nation. "I want you to feel, those of you who are com ing to the assistance of the professional officers of the government, that we have a very serious purpose, that we have not asked you to associate yourself with us except for a very definite and practical purpose, to get you to give us your best Independent thoughts as to how we ought to make ready for any duty that may fall upon the "I do not have to expound it to you; you know as well as I do the spirit of America. The spirit of America is one of peace, but one of ladefetfci ence. It is a spirit that is profoundly concer4 with peaco, because it can oxpress itself best owCkf In peace. It Is the spirit of peace and good wfl and of human freedom; but it Is also the spirit of a nation that is self-conscious, that knows and loves its mission in the world, and thai knows that It must command the respect of tx world. "So it seems to me that we are not workiig as those who would change anything of Ames ica, but only as those who would safeguard ev erything in America. I know that you will ea ter into conferences with tho officors of the navy in the spirit and with that feeling, and it makes me proud, gentlemen, that the busy men of America, tho men who stand at tho front of their professions, should bo willing in this way to as sociate themselves voluntarily with the govern ment in tho task in which it needs all sorts of expert and serious advice. Nothing ought to be done in this way by any singlo group of per sons everything ought to bo done by all of us united together, and I wolcome this association in tho most sorlous and grateful spirit." QUERULOU8NESS OR FEAR? A great part of tho press docs not relax its fire on. Mr. Bryan. In New York the publication of a' newspaper without a daily editorial railing at him would perhaps be regarded as a departure from tho standards of Journalism too radical for toloration. Is it mero inability to break away from an ol4 habit of Bryan baiting or is it implied recogni tion that the Nebraskan looms now as for the last ninetcon years a figure so commanding lm American politics that ho can bo held in check only by Incessant bombardment? Is it qucrulousness or is it fear? Columbia (S. C.) State. When tho Pacific Mail steamship company re cently sold Its fleet of ships it was taken as proof positive in certain quarters that tho LaFolIette seaman's act was the awful blow at American owned vessels that vessel owners had said it was. Since It has been shown that the real reason was that tho Pacific Mall being owned by the South ern Pacific railroad could not operate througk the Panama canal and would, therefore, be left with little to do, a dense silence has fallen In the aforesaid quarters. THE WntELESS King of tho. flaming thunderbolt, Child of tho storm-swept sky, I leap and race through tho roads of space, Voice of tho Sea am I. No winding channels guide my flight, No threads my sinews chain, For I take my flight on tho wings of light, Tho Mercury of the main. Over the crcsto of tho writhing sea, Under the clouds, low hung, I flash my way through the spume and spray Giving tho lightning tongue. I laugh while the tempest yields me way, I scatter tho driving rain, And the sluggard wind lags far behind Tho Mercury of the main. Where tho masts of the churning ships point uj To tho stars through the silent dark, I take my quest, north, east or west, Sped by tho spitting spark. And I scour the waves and I search the land Till the destined goal I gain, And hearts that sigh are gladdened by Tho Mercury of tho main. When Neptune scourges his sullen waves With the lash of tho tempest's breath, And the brave ships shake and the captains quaes And the engines race with Death, Tls to me they turn In their tortured fear, And seldom they turn in vain; For the succor flies, to the trumpet cries Of the Mercury of the main. King of the flaming thunderbolt, Child of the storm-swept sky, I leap and race through the roads of space, Voice of the Sea am I; For the newer gods of the newer years, Gods with the Titan's brain. Have made of fire and their high desire, A Mercury of the main. r-Washington Poet. I il j&fe