National Republican., 1876-10-09
BANK sWINDLERs-DEMoCRATIC HON
ESTY


the entire uDfitness of the Democratic psrty
as it was, is and ever will be to govern this
country, that thing is found in its constitu-
tional tendency to lie. Every good man
will lament the unfortunate failure of the
FIeedman's Savings Bank, as he does the
| failure of all banks when the creditors are
injured but no man with particle of
truthfulness will assert that this bank was
instituted with a fixed purpose to plunder,
any more than any bank under Democratic
or Whig auspices. But to put the worst
possible phase on the matter, we may ad-
NIT that this was the sole object of the
leading corporators, and then ask what that
has to do with the Republican party per Sc,
unless the party indorses the conduct of
these men in its organic caracity. Banks
are breaking almost daily-national banks
and State banks. The corporators of these
banks are of all political parties-Demo-
Gratis, Republicans, and mere spectators
without any politics beyond their pockets.
Now, we ask, what propriety would there
be in charging on the Democratic party of
New York the numerous bank failures and
enormous swindling of the poor, laboling
depositors, which is constantly occurring
in the city of New York, for instance?
Under the laws of that State there is no
adequate safeguard for the hard-earned
savings of the patrons of savings banks, and
almost weekly-at least monthly-the side
walks are crowded with the unfortunate
victims of mismanagement or downright
rascality, demanding in vain the plttance
they had stored away for some trying ne
cessity. In the city of New York alone
the annual losses by bank failures will
reach nearly or quite as much as the entire
loss of the Freedmen's Bank, and yet no
Democratic paper or peddler of poor poll
tics has one word of denunciation for these
Northern plunderers, not one word of sym
pathy for the poor Irishmen, Germans or
Americans, and, worst of all, not q single
measure of relief or to prevent the future
occurrence of similar disasters--nothing
in their platform, nothing in the letter of
their candidate, nothing in their added,
lying brains, even hintlng at the cure of
these evils. Their sympathies just now are
all for the poor black man. who has excited
their deepest commiseration by the loss of
a few dollars, but for the loss of his free
dom, his manhood, his citizenship-for
thrusting him back into bondage through
fear of intimldation-they have no tears to
shed, not briny drop.
The depositors in broken banks char
tered by Democratic Legislatures, existing
by virtue (vice) of Democratic legislation,
they have always held in bondage-made
them slaves of party, used them to main
tain the ascendancy of slaveocracy and the
irrepressible conflict between the slave labor
of the South and the free labor Of the
North, and holding them thus bound to
their rotten carcass of falsehood, deceit and
retrogression, they do not care to waste
upon them any of the sweet sympathies
they are now pouring out upon the poor
black men with such infinite tenderness
and unlimited quantities. The history
of banking in the United States for the
last fifty years, notwithstanding the domi-
nation of the Democratic party for the
most part of the time and its hard money,
specie payment, individual responsibility,
stump oratory theories, will show more
broken banks chartered by Democratic
Legislatures and more money lost ten times
over than under Republican rule, national
and State banks all told. 1t will also show
that the corporators and stockholders of
these banks were fully represented by Dem
ocrats, and that no Democratic Legislature
ever carried out any efficient measure for
the protection of bank creditors, or ever in
good faith attempted the enforcement Of
its hard money fallacies. Even in its
palmiest days, when the star of
Jackson was in the ascendant, when
it dared to announce the political mon
strosity Ito the victors belong the spoils,"
when it vetoed the old United States bank
and drove it for shelter to Democratic
Pennsylvania; when it transferred the sur
plus revenue from National to State bank
keeping, (gone where the wOodbine
twineth, even then the head of Democ-
racy recommended irresponsible State
banks to increase their issues to supply the
deficiency created by the withdrawal of
the United States bank circulation. This
was infallible Democratic advice, and they
obeyed with a vengeance. Never in the
history of this country was there such in
flation and widespread financial ruin as
were caused by Democratic financial tin
kering at that time. They were in the as
cendant all over the country, controlled
State and National legislation, and were
responsible for all the ruin wrought. Then
was the time to have devised financial
science which would have commended it.
self to the common sense and honesty of
mankind, and forever prevented financial
panics; but it failel, as it ever has and will
fail, whenever it attempts to deal with the
great problems in the science of society.
Without positive virtue of its own, without
any respectable degree of craftsmanship,
with a constitutional antagonism to
truth, honesty, human rights and all pro-
gressive ideas, its only hope is in the faults,
failings and vices of others, and hence the
bowling of reform and the bitter and dis
honest denunciation of the savings bank
fiasco. without even the suggestion of
remedy for an evil inherent in our present
financial modes, and for which neither
party is responsible, except in its failure to
devise better system, which the present
party has done in part at least by securing