APRIL 2, 1903.
THE NEBRASKA INDEPENDENT.
STATE BANKERS
The national bankers control only
one-third of the banking business and
about one-third of them have domi
nated all financial affairs for the last
forty years. The state and private
bankers have been the cringing slave?
of the few dominating national bank
ers and have obeyed without ques
tion every order issued from Wall
street and voted as they were di
rected. The result has been that
many of them are bankrupts, others
through their desperate efforts to save
their fortunes have landed in the peni
tentiary, while these few national
bankers have accumulated fortunes,
a great part of which has come
through the Ignorant and slavish
obedience of private and state bank
ers to the orders they have received.
Many of them at last begin to see
that they have been used as tools
and are now doing some thinking for
themselves. The first conclusion that
they have arrived at is that they all
acted like idiots in 1893 when they
obeyed the order to absolutely refuse
all credit ' and thereby ruined their
customers, and all of them, bankers
as well as farmers and merchants,
were involved in ruin.
They are also beginning to reflect
upon the special privileges that na
tional bankers enjoy which are de
nied to them. The national banker
gets currency to loan out to the full
amount of his capital, less his office
furniture and things of that sort He
gets government deposits and pays no
interest, 75 to 85 per cent of which
he can loan out The state bank,
v hich may be a far more responsible
institution, gets none of these special
privileges. Then as banking is all
"confidence" from whatever point you
look at it, the name "national bank"
goes a long ways with many deposi
tors. They have an idea that de
posits are safter in a "national" bank
than they are in a "state" bank.
Notwithstanding all these advant
ages, this clique of ruling bankers
-were not satisfied, but inaugurated a
scheme to take away from the smaller
bankers what business they had,
through the branch bank plan. At
this point the state bankers and small
er banks, for the first time, refused to
obey orders.- Since that time they
have been "thinking." They have got
far enough along to be open to con
viction. THE MOST POWKRrUL MAN
The most powerful man in th
United States is not President Roose
velt, but John D. Rockefeller. Roose
velt cannot impose a tax on the peo
ple by his own order and Rockefeller
can. The taxes of the United States
are collected, for the most part, by
Increasing the pjice of goods consumed
by the people. Every time you buy a
pound of sugar or almost anything
else, part of the price is the tax you
pay. Whenever Rockefeller wishes to
tax the people, he raises the price of
certain kinds of goods and gets the
money. There is none to say him nay.
Then Rockefeller's "political" power
is greater than that of the president
iWith the men under his control ali
over the country, if he wanted a Cu
ban treaty he would get it without
all the labor and bother that the
president has gone to, only to be de
feated in the end. The Standard Oil
senators would see to it that the treaty
went through all right
Rockefeller's power continually
grows. It Is not hedged about with
constitutional limitations. Standard
Oil is, of course, the greatest source
of the Rockefeller wealth and power
and the greatest contributor to hi3
income of $2,000,000 a month, but he
also controls the consolidated Gas
company, the Brooklyn Union Gas
company, the Standard Gas company,
the Mutual Gas company, the Kings
County Electric Light and Power
company, the Edison IlluminatiDg
company, the New Amsterdam Gas
company, the Richmond Light and
Power company and the New York
Gas and Electric Light, Power and
Heat company.
John D. Rockefeller is also the con
trolling factor in the National Transit
company, owning the Union Pipe
line and the Union Tank line, the New
York Transit company and the light
erage business in connection therewith
at the port of New York. Incidental
ly Mr. Rockefeller has enormous in
terests and big refineries at Constable
Hook and Long Island City, including
a line of tank steamers.
This by no means is the limit of
Mr. Rockefeller's influence. His in
terests in New York traction systems
are far greater than are popularly
supposed, and there are few nickel,
handed to the conductors of the sur
face or elevated roads that do not fur
nish a portion of his princely income.
His holdings in the Manhattan Ele
vated, in Interborough Rapid Transit,
the Belmont company, the Harlem
River and Port Chester railroad and
in the Staten island system of trol
leys are very extensive and there are
good reasons for believing that he has
been gradually securing a comfort
able interest in Brooklyn Rapid Tran
sit At any rate he is credited witn
having dictated the elections of both
Jacob L. Greatsinger and Edwin M.
Winter, the two most recent presidents
of that system.
Of stead railroads entering the city
of New York, the only one in which
Mr. Rockefeller has any very great
interest is the New York, New Haven
& Hartford. His holdings in roads
that do not reach this city St Paul,
Missouri Pacific, the Missouri, Kan
sas & Texas, Iron Mountain and manv
of the roads classed as Gould proper
tiesare large.
He is also one of the largest individ
ual stockholders in the United States
Steel corporation. He owns a String
of banks and controls credit
This man, whose continuously in
creasing capital will control more and
more of the industries of the United
States, who will control more and
more senators and representatives in
congress is a robber and an extor
tioner. He rules by the power of ac
cumulated wealth. The dose of sooth
ing syrup administered by congress is
not the medicine to administer to a
land pirate like John D. Rockefeller.
To be ruled by a robber, extortioner
and pirate like John D. Rockefeller is
worse than to be ruled by a king.
THE ONLY WAY
There will be considerable building
this year, but not as much as last.
The editor has some advice to give
to those contemplating improvements.
Ha ha learned something by 'experi
ence and he will not charge the read
ers of this paper anything for the ex
perience, although it was very costly.
If you are contemplating any improve
ments, get the contractor to make an
estimate. Tell him that that estimate
imnt include the whole cost and after
he has made the estimate including
everything, to add 25 per cent to it
before he presents you the papers
Then make him swear on a stack of
Bibles that that is all that the job will
cost Then take the estimates of the
contractor and add 50 per cent more
to it yourself. After that, make cal
culations that there will be deficiencies
that will amount to 25 per cent more
and be sure you have the whole
amount before you begin. If after
adding all these percentages, you find
that it will take all the money you
have to pay the bills, then look
around and see what you can mort
gage to raise an additional amount
If you haven't anything that you can
mortgage, then don't That is the
only safe way for any one contemplat
ing building in these days of trust
prices.
One phip with 500 dead soldiers! But
Beveridge- showed a nugget of gold
which he said was found in a Philip
pine creek. Is the compensation sufficient?
An
ortUIHL oILt
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rui
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A COURT WITH COMMON 6KNSE
The supreme court of Colorado has
held in a recent case "that the failure
of an actual majority of: the person?
voting at the election to vote in fav
or of the amendment is not a point to
be given any consideration."
If the supreme court of this state
had exercised that kind of common
sense , the people would have been
saved large sums of money and avoid
ed the necessity of supreme court
commissions and the construction of
the laws by a set of men whom the
people never elected for that pur
pose. Half the government" of the
state of Nebraska is, as every man
knows, wholly unconstitutional. But
it is submitted to because it is a nec
essity. The requirement that there
shall be a majority of all the votes
cast at the election cast for a consti
tutional amendment before it can be
adopted, which is counting every man
who don't vote as against it, is a
principle applied to nothing but cou
rtitutional amendments. The supreme
court of Colorado, being endowed with
common sense, which is a very rare
thing among courts in tnis genera
tion, says: "If an amendment is sub
mitted In accordance with the rules
laid down in the constitution itself
and receives a majority of the votes
cast on it, it is a valid amendment
and becomes part of the constitution.'
REPUBLICAN DRIVEL
A few republicans still go around
talking about a "fifty-cent" silver dol
lar, but they are not as numerous as
they once were. Those who still per
sist in it, belong either to the politi
cal shysters or those absolutely ignor
ant of the first principles of political
economy. The "value" of a thing, as
that word is used in trade and com
merce, is estimated by what it will
exchange for in other things. If a
man has something and no one will
give him anything for it, it has no
"value," or "it isn't worth anything,"
as it is sometimes expressed. During
the reign of the Cleveland-Sherman re
gime, this writer knew a man who
had 250 bushels of as fine potatoes as
were ever grown. He hauled a load
to town, but no man would give him
anything for them. He couldn't sell
them at any price. He drove to the
outskirts of the town and threw them
out by the wayside. They had as
much "life-sustaining" quality as any
potatoes ever had, but they had no
"value." No one would give anything
in exchange for them. Mr. High, of
Iowa, will see that in this case at
least that there was a very great
difference between "value" and the
"life-sustaining" quality. To desig
nate both, by the same word produces
confusion, so modern economists call
one "utility" and the other "value."
Some of the ' old fogies among them
continue td say "value in use ", which
is using a phrase of doubtful meaning,
instead of one word of clear and dis
tinct meaning. ' --
With these things in mind, it will
be seen what childish drivel It Is to
talk about a "fifty-cent"; silver dol
lar. The value of a silver dollar Is
estimated by what it will exchange for,'
and every one of these drivelers knows .
that a silver dollar will exchange for
just as much as a gold dollar, that its
value is now, and always has been,
exactly the same as a gold dollar and
that not one of them will take less
than 100 cents for any silver dollar
which he may have.
As strange as it may seem, just such
"drivel" as that has often been heard
in the United States senate, so one
must not be too hard on the poor, un
educated followers of men who are
constantly described in the great
dailies as scholars and statesmen. But
it makes a man feel like swearing
whenever he thinks about it.
It is authoritatively announced in
London that Mrs. May brick will be re
leased next year. She was convicted
by the charge of a judge who soon af
ter died in a mad house. She was ac
cused of poisoning her husband with
arsenic. It was proved in the trial
that he was a confirmed arsenic eater
and would often take enough In one
day to kill half a dozen men. Extra
ordinary efforts have been made by
this government to secure her pardon,
all of which failed. It having turned
out that she is a material witness in
a case involving a million or two, the
British government has resolved to
set her free. Appeals to justice and
mercy were of no avail, but as soon as
money was involved, the British acted.
That is in accordance with the na
ture of the ruling Britisher.
Try one of Branch & Miller's com
bination orders for groceries. It will
save you money.