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About The independent. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1902-1907 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 6, 1904)
Ami - Vol. XVI. ; - LINCOLN, 'NEB., OCTOBER 6, 1901 No. 20 111 ... ' u. " n"; i the money power E5;rh: It will be well in the very beginning of this speech to correct the error so prevalent among the people that popu lists are opposed to all banks and banking systems. Like eve.y other tenet of the people's paity its position on banking, as well as upon the money question haVbeen persistently misrep resented by the public press. Fopii.ists .are universally opposed to tanivs of issue, but recognize the legitimate functions of a bank and prize them as highly as any one. ; The Populist Banker For a concrete example, let us take this beautiful little town. Thuc are some twenty different kinds oi busi nesses carried on here. Every day, I am informed, there are about $3,000 in money paM in to these business houses some days many times more. Ail these business men want some safe place to keep that money until it is sent off to buy more goods. They take it to the banker who agrees to safely keep it without charge and pay it back on de mand. The banker performs a useful act. He has constructeda place where the. money, is measurably safe tiom robbers, and he charges nothing to the depositors for this service. - The experience of centuries has taught the banker., that, there w 11 al ways be a certn - per cent of vthat has agreed to pay every doi.a.oi it back on demand, he can sa ely loan out a certain part of it and in that way he gets pay for-hls services.- All authorities upon banking agree that it is not safe for the banker to loan more than 15 per cent of these deposits and when the national banking law was first enacted the banl er ;was ob liged to keep a- 25 per cent . reserve. So far ther'bahUer is an nonstable and efficient servant of societ and is doing as much toward the upb-.-iiding of your community and town &s any business man in it; But he does even a greater .service. There was. a ;oung man in this town, bo I was tofd, today, who was a miller. He had be jii work ing at that trade for some years, was prudent and frugal and had saved about $3,000. With that amount of money he could dam the stream near by, and put up a mill that would be a great accommodation to the f aimers and the residents in the tpwu. b'uch a mill would tend to bring traue to the town'and help build it up help your schools and your churches but $b,000 was not enough to put Fn all the ma chinery needed and furnish money to run it. Here the banker, who was. a man of prudence and business ability, looked the whole matter over. Ho was convinced that the young man was honest, knew bis business and tnat a loan to him was safe. So h iet the voung map have ,$1,500 and the mill for three- years. The loan has beer re paid, the young man has bulit x nice residence in your town his chi.dren at tend your excellent school, and he helps support your churches, &; of which would not have been Jrr.c, if you had had no banker, and each mer chant had kept his money in hi.- own safe until he sent it off to purchaso more goods. In an investigai'ou that did not occupy me more than turec or lour hours I found several oth? enter prises, even in this small tcvr .hat could never have come into eir fence, had you not had a bank her;. With that kind of banking the pou-.iisls have no quarrel. Banks of Issue . But when it comes to nanks of issue, that is an entirely different iu.,Uon. If your banker here, whom I highly respect, although for want of Informa tion he honestly believes tha I am a wild-eyed anarchist and socialist, alt done up 'a one pae.'age, ha 1 taken hlsj $r,0ua with which he -slabiii.hfd his ltttl bank, bought a novrnnunt bond with It, Hint th bond to Wash ington and received laek his $V0 and continued to collect Interest on bin bond J'lnt the satno as If he ha 1 not sent It to Washington at nil. h would have been granted a special irlvi!c;e to Ret double Interest on hie money. Then If hp hat! gone Into the biMlnoss of Inflating the currency by 4frc.tir.R ft "credit money," as It H catted, pio- moted unsound business ventures for the sake of getting his "credit money" to drawing interest? carefully pi ovwing that he lost nothing on the loas, if every time he had found a man in hard lines who must have money to fay his debts, he discounted that mau a note at about 25 per cent, in a fey jears you would have had a community made - up mostly of' renters ana pau pers, just as they have down in New York city today, while a few would own everything and the many would toil for a bare existence. The Plutocratic Banker There Is. a community not tat" from here that is in exactly that situation. The land is just as productive ; as it is around here; the people are just as industrious, but the bank1 down there owns many of the fa. ins ; and has mortgages on most of the othei-3. Many of you here know the town I need not mention: it. The renters come and go. The farm houses and barns are going to decay. TUo groves are neglected and the trees are dying. There is no happiness in the laces of the people and even the banker himself wears a sour -vissage and 'is forever denouncing the residents be- LABOR iTBIBBITETfl'tlWlsT'flM Sa ii u u iLwwftp&m . The laboring men of New York . City planned a labor banquet in honor of Thomas E. Watson; Peo pie 8 1 arty candidate-for president. . Preparation's were made to accommpdate one thousand guests at the banquet board; .Howl well these laboring men "have succeeded in demonstrating their great interest in the cause of the People's Party in New York, state,, where one of theirj own number,' Alfred j. v - BoultoD, heads the ticket for governor, is evidenced by the following telegram received at the hour of going to press: " TELEGRAM. New York, Oct. 5, 1904. Editor Independent, Lincoln: Watson dinner remarkable success. A thousand dinners: Tremendous ova- -tion to Watson. Masterly speech by him. The Empire State will give the great Georgian fifty thousand votesy henry m. Mcdonald. frTiroli edition next week. Seiid in your orders for extra copies at once. - come to a stand still and starvation cause they don't pay., their interest and rents on time. The difference in these two towns results from tue tact that you have a banker here practic ing populist theories of banking and down there they have one who has been operating upon republican theories. - However I suppose that if I called your banker here a populist ne would want to fight, (laughter) Hut that is exactly what he has been doing, and it is only for want of intormatlon, he imagines that he is not a populist. Of course In a popular address a political speech. If you are so pleased to tall it I can not go technically Into the science of banking. I can only in very imperfect way, point out Kime of Its willent feat tiros. The bunking businctisi creates a flood of money, Som times, It lx called '"credit money," idino tlmoa "bank rtdiM," and one writer. Mr. UrlRln, htM called it "ho. cu poUus" monty. Hut wha ( vi r it ia tailed It "" money and jrrtcumn all the functions of money f.nat volumn have leen written by eatned men uwn this fmhj'ct. and ! hardly Know bow, In a few words, to cjp'A'n the -power - and force , of this sort of money. Perhaps I can illustrate It in some degree by a little thiag that came under my own observation. A Bankrupt Republican In 1893 I passed through the little town of Fpstoria, Ohiq. The train was disabled and we. had to remaU there for two or three hours. , Every factory was closed. Not a wheel was turning. The merchant stood idle benina his counter. The; citizens were standing in little groups about the village, and the blackness of dlspair rested upuj every thing. I enquired what thj ' trouble hvas. The citizens said that th's manu facturing plants ana mucn oi me town was owned by the secretary of the treasury, Mr. Foster, and thst he had failed. (Mr. Foster believed that nothing but gold could be money and the practice of that belief had brought him as well as many hundred thou sand more to bankruptcy.) ; I said to , the citizens; 'Why all this despair and gloom? All the prop erty is here that was here a week ago. All the money is here, none of it has been destroyed. The citizen art all here and are as willing to work as they ever were. Why has every thing seems td be facing you?" It was some time before anyone re plied, and I pressed the question time and again. At last one man said; "I tan again. At last one man said " 'I can tell you what has caused this terrible disaster, and it is a greater disaster than if the whole town nad been burned down. Tho banks reusco to extend the usual amount of eierM to Mr. Foster. If the town had' been burned down, with the amount of in surance that Mr. Foster carrier and the usual credit that the" banks had been giving him, t lere would Lave been no twffeiing here, for be would have replaced the build Ingsj, mq would all have work until they were Unshed and tho factories would have suited np ngaln! Now it, seems that th.ie Is nothing but utorvatlon ahead ot m," You can understand from tl u in cident what nn Important part this thing called "credit money" pltt) In producing prosperity or brliulr.' des truction upon tho people, an t d:at in part of thl.i great qneittion of banking. That Object Ltnon The next day after that ty conic panic struck uh In IHict, there m jat Ai much money m there had ever Ueu, but this credit money had disappeared in the twinkling of an eye. 'Che men who held that awful power in their hands did not realize what a force they controlled. They simply proposed to give us a little "object lesson," but they brought poverty and distress up- on this country, lasting for six years. -The number of insane, and the suicides that it produced can never ba knoAvn, but want and suffering spread all over the land. The echoe of their moans is still In our ears. Such a thunderbolt, - more powerful than was ever, launched by Jove, can be hurled at the prosperity ' and and business of this country at any time without a moment's notice. .Men can . have no warning of Its coming. Dunn's weekly s. review at the close of 1S92 said: "The. most properous year ever known closes today, with strongly fav-' orable indications for tho future." The last business day preceding tho panic" disclosed not even a cloud du the fi nancial; horizon. The next day there swept over the nation' a fiananciul hurricane before .which the business" structures of the whole, natlc u " v,cnt down. .The "credit money'. of " tlie country had .disappeared. The same awful power rests in the hands oi the' bankers today. In.,fact it 'is even . greater , than it was in : rav accprdtpgjothejJfflcial ..reports of lho , sworn - f a t pmon tontt rZ r.-rf::Xt J there is over $7,500,000,000 of this credit ; money, which carries with it all the functions of money and per f6rr8 all the ofllces of money in these ' unitea states. Comnared to" this vat i volume, .all the silver , and sold and ! r,reen.oacKjs is but a ? bagatelle. The ' disappearance of i this money aa; Vn' 1833 1 ,wo44 create a greater disaf,! er ' thavwarrceUnce and famine. The "power to destroy? is In the' hands of me, Daniters.i An order to refuse utl ; loans and call in all loans out&tlndfng', is all that is necessary to destrev it. There la' nothing "intrinsic" not 'even rt m . .1 A .1 l a. i . . . - a . ..... . : rne power to control the destiny of the nation" lies In It. , That in what populists . refer to when they &pealc of 'the money power." ; The 1 Money Power . ' Go .down any business street of any city in the land and ask the mtu who business what would happen if Iheir bank credits were shut off and you will not find one in a hundred, who if he answered you truly, b'.t wo-ild say; "I would have to shut up within' a wek." I ; A careful investigation by any. honest,, competent man will convince him that not more ihan ten1 per cent of tho business of this co;;n- try is transacted with money. Indeed -it is sometimes asserted that that not' five per cent oiti'isso transacted.1 that If the credit money was destroyed that CO per cent of business would be destroyed, and "the power to deploy" is in the hands of a few men down on Wall street. Jackon's Courage When NIckolas Diddle com? to An drew Jackson, telling Jackson that he could not fight the national bank and described the pover that Ijc bank could exercise, Jackson InUau of bending before the odds against hlra replied: "If the national btak has that much power, then II mua; be de stroyed." (Applause.) Tho populist looks this mighty force in the fuce and with Andrew Jackson says: 'It mi'st be destroyed." How can the creation of this my thical money be controlled? U there iany power In the people to do It? Dullness Men If I have found It dlfilcult to explain to you what tho "money po.ut" U, 1 shall have fttlll more dlfiuutly In explaining to bard working u.ca nucli as comport thH audienre. the many technical ultlltfrH that underlie tho citation of this money and we muni un b i jtand that, before Ae ran move toward the controlling of this power that dominates every tltins In the- business world, let tne s.iy that it hai become the fashion to euli only thiwe men who engagt In trade fur
