JANUARY 17, 1907
The Nebraska Independent
year is worth a little more to the far
mer because of the LaFollette reso
lution authorizing the interstate com
merce commission to investigate the
relation of railroads and elevators in
the handling of grain. Why was not
this done before? Why was it that La
Follette was able to force its passage?
The answer is ho was prepared for
the work to be done, and accepted all
rebuffs that were given to him with
out abating his efforts in behalf of the
people in any degree.
Roosevelt, LaFollette and Tillman
furnish the mental models to which
the political minds are adapting them
selves. Work, strenuous and intelli
gent work upon the part of legisla
tors is the order of the day. And
minorities have more cause and more
incentive for alert and strenuous work
than have majorities, if they recog
nize the responsibilities that rest up
on them;.
FALSE PROPHETS
"Good reasons must, of force, give
place to better." Shakespeare.
Pride of opinion is common to al
i
men. But the fool, alone, is incorrig
ible. outstripping even the knave. In
tellect compels search for truth, which
when found rewards its , possessor
with a joy and satisfaction that holds
in disdain apology for former errors
The decade that has passed has been
a glorious one in many respects. It
has been prolific of object lessons of
inestimable value. It has revealed to
man, in an especial manner, the power
of intellect as a factor in combatting
and overcoming the resistance offered
by nature to his material wants. It
has also apprized him of the great
economy of associated effort in the
work of utlizing the bounties of na
ture.
But, valuable as have been the ob
ject lessons that have wrought such
wonders in the material advancement
of society, still more valuable are those
other experiences that have dispelled
illusions of the mind and freed the
intellect from the slavery of popular
error.
Among the popular errors that have
been dispelled, perhaps the most im
portant of all is the discrediting of
bankers as oracles of financial wis
dom. People who were prone to credit
those whose occupation it was to deal
in money and credits with superior
knowledge on subjects pertaining to
'monetary science, trade relations and
industrial conditions now stand
aghast, in dumb astonishment, in the
presence of conditions that not only
give the lie to every claim set forth
by bankers as a class, but, brand them
as false prophets and arrogant mounte
banks. That this class of business men sro
being found out, and stripped of the
undue Influence that has been freely
accorded to them In the past, augers
well ftir the future of the Industrial
and business world. This is true for
many reasons, chief among which is greater still,, under monetary condi
the great power which naturally tions that favored the prosperity of all.
Inheres in the business itself, together Tne battle of demonetization was
with the fact that bankers are insist-
ently demabdihg extraordinary privi-
leges through' legislation. For ex-
ample, take the demand' of the bank-
ers that congress 'empower them to
issue bank notes upon the general
assets of the bank, giving as the os-
tensible reason why this should be
done the desire to give flexibility to
the currency, when the real reason
behind the demand is to secure the
privilege of creating debt upon which
they may compel society to pay them
interest. . .
gestion becomes very gauzy, when the iost. When ihe money changers were
enormously expanded credits of banks ready to enter upon their harvest of
are considered. These credits are confiscation, plunder and the enslave
wholly under the control of the bank- ment 0f mankind Frovidence 'revealed
ers, and while not as efficient as bank
note currency, yet they perform the
work of currency in a very consider-
able degree. The bank credits that
perform money work and economize
the use of coin or bank notes amounts
to billions. The bankers have insisted
upon being given the right under the
law to loan out their deposits, to a
dangerously low point, and their re-
serves are seldom found to be above
the legal requirements and not un-
frequently below. Yet these same
oanners are constantly narrassing con;
gress to permit them to issue wild-cat
A O . . . . . 1 1 I
currency notes ior general circulation.
The bankers have always been found
on the side of a contracting money
volume, when the money to be con-
tracted was other than their own
notes. .The bankers were, from start
to finish, enemies of the greenback
that fought the civil war and saved
the union. They inaugurated the
. j i it i I
movement to demonetize snver wnen
the world's money supply was insuffi-
cient to mainuun siauie prices, mah-
ing their attack upon one of the metals
at a time when several commercial
nations were under a suspension of
specie payments.
wnen universal price levels were
tTV " 1 1 I
falling, because of silver being denied
full use as money, the bankers of the
world laid the blame to silver, and
vociferously demanded that that metal
be outlawed everywhere. They de-
niea mat tne money voiume was in-
sufficient to sustain business. They
proclaimed tne gom supply aminaant,
and pressed the work of outlawing sil-
ver, at a time when the gold supply
was diminishing and universal prices
falling. They denied that the value is a niethod of gain without the pro
of money, if the money be gold, varied (luction of any wealth whatever. It
inversely with the supply. In fact the ,)recdg greed of an abnormal quality
bankers of the World Were in COn- fhrnnPh iho nrnr-tiro nf rntntmntr n
spiracy against general society, favor-
ng a policy of confiscation through
monetary legislation.
The men at the head of the great
banking institutions at the world's
money centers knew that they could
rosper at the expense of general so
ciety through a policy of money eon-
ruction and property confiscation.
Int. they were too short-slxhtcd and
dinded by dishonesty and greed to
Know that they could prosper even
fought and won ly the money mongers
and pawn-brokers. The masses of the
people were insufficiently enlightened
to-defend themselves. Bankers, little
and big, acted together under orders
from the chiefs of their order at the
great centers. They made common
cause with monopolies in every
department of industry and all resort-
ed to intimidation and corrupt and
treasonable practices to bend the peo-
pie to their will.
But when they had won their ig-
nnhla vtnrv tha Vionrl A
is seen, and lo and behold! they have
t0 man a cheap process of extracting
gold from the rocks, and, presto
change, thousands of hitherto worth
hes goid mines became bananzas. Low
grade mines that could not before be
worked without loss are now being
worked at a princely profit. New de
posits of gold are found in unsuspect
ed quarters and the production of gok
m0unts upward at leaps and bounds
imparting new life to every industry
and causing hope to spring up in
every heart.
They had demonetized the wrong
metal to serve their unholy purposes
Siver was aml fitm is lhfi mnnpv nf
the poor nations of the east, with their
vast "populations. Gold was the money
of the more progressive and wealthy
nations of the west. Bimettalism stil
exists in a new form, both metals do-
ing money work in different quarter
of the globe, all being benefited, the
Asiatic receiving cheaper silver, .and
the European and American having
cheaper gold.
The prosperity that is general has
brought to the bankers increased gain
over what would have come to them
under their robber policy, if Provi-
dence had not intervened and defeated
their criminal work. The difference
being that they now share in the gen
eral prosperity, instead of becoming
possessed of the property of others
through an organized system of spol
iation and piunder, under reactionary
conditions in the midst of distress
and dcSpajr
The business of banking has ever
nad a corrupting tendency upon those
engaged in it. it is at best but a
modjned form 0r the pawn shop. It
part of that which passes through the
hands of the banker. It fosters an
Instinct that is antagonistic to society,
which it regards as its prey. The
bankers of 1SG1-5 were disloyal In their
dealings with the government. They
organized the gold board and gambled
upon the misfortune of the war. and
discredited the medium that paid the
soldier ills wages and furnished hlrn
with hi gun. The greed of the banker
In Inflating bank credit currency con
stitutes the only danger to the indus
trial world at this time.
r
,
KEEP BANKS OUT OF POLITICS
(From the Philadelphia Press.)
The failure of the Waynesburg
bank, which appears to be a much
worse failure than at first reported,
is largely attributed to politics. This
is the burden of most of the informa
tion that has gone beneath the surface.
some or tne omcers of the institu
tion have been mixed up in Greene
county politics for a number of yearsT
Greene is a small county,' but in poll-
one of the most corrupt in the entire,
commonwealth. It has been almost
impossible to credit some oi me sto
ries of election crimes that have come
out of that section. But no secret
was made of the corruption." Every
body in the country knew of it, and
it came to be understood that large
numbers of voters in both parties were
regularly bribed at the primaries. As
this was the accepted method of con
testing primary elections the prices
ran up to figures that -would have
been staggering in many communities
where bribery is not uncommon.
The climax appears , to have been
reached last year when nominations
for a judgship were being made. There
was a hot contest over the democratic
nomination. Some of the officers of
the Waynesburg bank were interested
in the success of one of the candi
dates, and it was alleged at the time
that many tens of thousands of dol
lars were put out to purchase votes.
Men of all parties voted, so that
the total vote at the primaries of a
single party was nearly as large as the
total vote cast by all parties at a gen
eral election. The fraud and corrup
tion were apparent in the returns.
But that was not all the evidence.
The undenied stories told at the time
were startling. Statements were
made of individual cases where
amounts as high as $60 were paid for
a single vote. Where therew as so
much competition and so much mon
ey it could not be expected the thrifty
citizen who put his vote up for sale
would sell it for a low price. It has
been alleged and not disputed, so far
as we have seen, that the amount
expended in this one contest ran in
to the hundreds of thousands. To
some it has appeared particularly
shocking that all this should have hap
pened in a light over a judgship, but
the crime is the same, no matter
what office rr. ay be involved.
We do not suppose the wrecking of
the Waynesburg bank was wholly duo
o corrupt politics. There was other
speculation, but there was enough Inf
he political part of it to make It
worth while to do something to keep;
Politics out of the banks and the bank
out of politics.