Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1878-11-06

surplus, which the national banks make,
what do they give usf They give rs the
safest banking system We ever had. Sup
pose the profits on their circulation were
five per cent. instead of two and hall, 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 interest on their bonds every
yeer to the business interests of the cOun.
try. Can you expect to have banking sys-
tenn ike 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 il economy! 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 aud yellOwdog currency, which robbed
the people wholesale! You night 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
thine. Are the business men of the coun.
try unreasoning children that they should
act thus?
But you may cay, 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? l
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 not all, of the
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
public interest. l will not go into dis
cussion of the question whether new issues
of greenbacks, a 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 I have already
shown, would make the resumption of
specie payments impossible, not only at
present, but for an indefinite time. 1t would
able paper money, without rudder and
compass.
2. Our national bank currency possesses
q quality very important to the business of
the country, which the government paper
does not possess-it il the quality of elastic
ity. Have you not all been demanding .
currency elastic in volume? Well, the bank
currency il. The government paper cur
rency is not. The volume of bank currency
by the requirements of the business
needed it viii become profitable to
issue more, and it will be issued. When less
il needed, the excess flows back to the
banks and withdraws. 1t is self-adjusting
process. The volume of government paper
currency is liked by law, and that law is
made by politicians. Whatever the chang
ing needs of business may be, that volume
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 a set of
politicians is the unsafest and worst The
government is bad banker, but if well ad.
ministered it may be q good bank cymp-
troller, as it proved in this instance. In .
very important respect then, the national
bank currency, being equally safe rs to
value, is vastly superior to greenbacks, and
every thinking business man knows that it
is SO.
AN ISSUE THAT MAY BE SAFELY AID.
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 il about eighteen hundred millions.
l would respectfully ask our Democratic
friends whether they are in such hurry to
put their hands in their pockets to pay of
those eighteen hundred millions this wear
or next? Will it not, even under favorable
circumstances, take at least twenty five or
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
discuss whether it may be best to pay of
that little amount too, or to keep it as a
basis for bank circulation? Suppose we
adjourn this debate until that period. Let
me suggest that it is useless to borrow trou-
BILE about eggs to be laid q quarter of GEN.
tury 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 q monopoly and the EN-
bodinent of the money power. Now, am
as firmly opposed to oppressive mon opOlies
as anybody. But I am equally opposed To,
and l feel hearty contempt for chat trick
of demagogy which brin . 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. If that sort of demagogy be
extensively and effectively INDUCED in, we
may, as . nation, have to pay dearly for it
AS TO MONOPOLIES.
Con tho national hanks ho BALLAD q mn