The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1878-10-24
which the national banks make,

surplus, which the national banks make,
what do they give US? They give us the
| saIest banking system we ever had. Sup
pose the profits on their circulation were
five per cent instead of two and half, and
their average earnings as to capital and sur
plus twelve per cent. instead of five and
half, it would still be folly to forget that
this banking system, by its safety, is worth
many times the interesto on their bonds every
year to the business interests of the coun.
try. Can you expect to have a banking sys-
tenn like this without any profit at all to the
men investing their money in it? You
speak of saving to the people the interest
on the bonds deposited by the national
banks by the destruction OF this system,
and you call it economy I You call itecono-
my to wipe out this safe system and substi.
tute for it, as would inevitably be the case,
the old state banks again, with their Wild
cat and yellow-dog currency, which robbed
the people wholesale! You might as well
call it economy to abolish your paid fire de-
partment and intrust your property again
to the boys who run with the machine, be-
cause the paid fire department costs some
thing Are the business men of the coun.
try unreasoning children that they should
act thus? 41 4E#t" X
But you may say, Why not deprive the
national banks of this currency, thus saving
the interest on their bonds, and then still
keep them under the strict government
supervision which makes them so safe? [
will tell you why not: Because the benefit
arising from their circulation was the prin-
cipal thing which induced those corpora
tons to come into or organize under the
national system, and to submit to the rig
Orous government supervision, which is by
no means pleasant to them. Deprive them
OF that benefit, and most, if rot all, of the
2, 400 national banks now in existence will
withdraw from the national system and be-
come states banks again. You can not eat
your cake and eat it too.
But there are still other reasons why the
withdrawal of the national bank currency
and the substitution thereof of greenbacks
appear to me highly detrimental to the
cussion of the question whether new issues
of greenbacks, government paper money
in times of peace, would be constitutional
or not. | am strongly of the opinion that
they would not be constitutional. But
leaving that aside, even if the constitution
did not stand in the way, the following
points are of decisive importance:
l. The substitution of greenbacks for
national bank notes, as | have already
shown, would make the resumption of
specie payments impossible, not only at
present. but for anindefnite time. 1t would
launch out again upon the sea of irredeem-
able paper money, without rudder and
compass.
2. Our national bank currency possesses
a quality very important to the business of
the country, which the government paper
does not possess-it is the quality of elastic
ity. Have you not all been demanding a
currency elastic in volume? Well, the bank
currency is. The government paper cur
rency is not. The volume of bank currency
under well regulated system is determined
by the requirements of the business
of the country. When more is
needed it will become profitable to
issue more, and it will be issued. When less
is needed, the excess flows back to the
banks and withdraws. 1t is a self-adi usting
process. The volume of government paper
currency is fixed by law, and that law is
made by politicians. Whatever the chang
ing needs of business may be, that volume
of the government paper currency remains
fixed until through the slow and cumber-
some machinery of legislation the law is
changed again by politicians. And of all
human agencies to determine the volume of
currency needed by business, business itself
is the most reliable and best, and set of
politicians is the unsafest and worst. The
government is bad banker, but if wellad
LII
troller, as it proved in this instance. In
very important respect then, the national
bank currency, being equally safe as to
value, is vastly superior to greenbacks, and
every thinking business man knows that it
is so.
AN ISSUE THAT MAY BE SAFELY ADJ
JOURNED.
What other objections are there to the
national banks? That, as Democrats say,
the national bank currency being based
upon United Stares bonds, the maintenance
of that circulation will tend to perpetuate
the national debt. Well, the debt out
standing is about eighteen hundred millions.
| would respectfully ask our Democratic
friends whether they are in such hurry to
put their hands in their pockets to pay off
those eighteen hundred millions this year
or next? Will it not, even under favorable
thirty years to accomplish that task? But
while we have the national debt, will it not
well to put it to the best use we can?
/ When at last, after twenty-five or thirty
years we have paid it off until we
come down to the last four hundred
millions, will it not then be time enough to
discuss whether it may be best to pay off
that little amount too, or to keep it as
basis for bank circulation? Suppose we
ADJOURN CnlS QeDaCe until Cnat perl0u. Let
me suggest that it is useless to borrow trou-
BILE about eggs to be laid a quarter of a cen
fury hence. Indeed, this objection shows
the extreme poverty of argument to which
the opponents of the national bank question
are reduced. Their last point is that the
national banks are monopoly and the en-
bodiment of the money power. Now, am
as firmly opposed to oppressive monopolies
as anybody. But am equally opposed to,
and feel a hearty contempt for that trick
of demagogy which brin g the charge of
monopoly or oppressive money power
against everything against which it is
thought expedient to excite the prejudices
and hatred Of unsophisticated people of
small means. IL that sort of demagogy be
extensively and effectively INDUCED in, we
may, as nation, have to pay dearly for it.
AS TO MoNoPoLIEs.
Can the national banks be called mo-
nopoly? Monopolies are exclusive, and
national banking is free to any person in
the land who has money to invest. There
is, then, a monopoly OF which everybody
can become part and beneficiary. There
are at present 20S,000 shareholders
in the national banks in the United
States. More than one-half of them
hold shares to the amount of 1000 and less.
They are presumably people of limited
means, who have thus invested their little
surplus. And any five of YOU if YOU can