The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1871-04-21


The national.bank ring Is determined
to make itself odious. From all parts
Of the country come complaints of the
bad condition of the national bank
notes! They are filthy, ragged, illegi-
bic, pesiiferous and pestilential The
complaints had become so general that
even Congress could not disregard them.
General GARFIELD, chairman of the
House Committee on Currency and
Banking, the other day reported bill
providing for the issue of fresh notes.
General GARFIELD, though Radical,
is esteemed as a man o. honor; but he
and his committee are altogether too
much under the influence of the nation
al bank interest, and the bill reported
provided that the new notes should be
issued by the Treasury, at Tie public er-
pense, an injustice 80 gross and fragrant
that 1t is astonishing how man of
GARFIELD's reputation and intelligence
could be found willing to father it. The
moment the bill was offered, Mr.. HoL-
MAN, the Democratic Representative of
the Second District of Indiana, moved
what the tools of the bank ring call "a
very obnoxioug amendment" provi.
ding that the banks should pay the OK.
pense of issuing the new notes, an
amendment so just that General GAR
FIELD could not refuse to accept it, and
that many Republicans, not directly
n hn tnf N nf NJ MI
Joined the solid Democratic phaanx in
its favor. The amendment was carried
by liberal majority. But when the
vote was taken, the bill was laid on the
table by very light vote, and this
much. needed measure again postponed.
1t may not be so readily apparent
why banks should oppose the issue Of
new notes, even at their own expense.
The cost Is not so great but that II would
be amply compensated for by the con-
venience of the banks themselves. The
true reason of their objection to the
new notes is that the old notes are con-
stantly wearing out, are destroyed and
lost. 1t requires only one moments
thought to recognize the fact that new,
clean, crisp white note is not half so
easily lost and destroyed as an old,
dark, limp, and soft one and, Of course,
all notes so lost and destroyed are q
direct gain to the bank, as it is not cal.
led upon to redeem them. Now, the
people of the United States pay the ma
tional banks annually about twenty
millions of dollars for the service which
they are supposed to render the public
in furnishing it with three hundred
millions of bank notes, which the pub.
lie might have entirely free of cost, if
it but chose to say the word. Yet when
the people complain that instead of
decent currency, for which they pay
fabulous price, they are furnished with
indecent rags, we are coolly told that
we may, perhaps, have new currency if
we, the people, choose to pay for it;
that we certainly shall not have it un-
less we do, but that even if we choose
to pay for it, it is by no means certain
that our masters of the national-bank
ring will allow us to have it, because
they make in the long run little addi-
tional perc entage over and above the
twenty millions, by compelling the
people to use the disgusting, filthy rags
which these impudent monopolists ten
der us as supera abundant return for
their twenty million subsidy. Verify,
verify, the worst enemy of the national
banks could not hurt them so much in
the public esteem as their own unscru-
pulous rapacity does every day.