Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1878-04-04

III
the Daily, and 81 per snnur for tn
Weeky-PostGge free.
MASSACHUSETTS IN THE VAN.
The enlargement Of privileget to sBindle com
munity,
Massachusetts, grants banks now to do will
impunity.
May cause the dear people," with decision
and unity,
To throw of such shackles and declare theiI
immunity.
AT a time when public opinion
is very strongly running in a way
adverse to all extra privileges, and
especially to the undue money
privileges of late years accorded to
banking institutions; when the leg.
islative power that has shielded
them is being called 10 account as
to its legitimacy; when many of
them have been weighed in the
balance and found wanting;" when
among the most highly honored
and trusted of the managers Of
them, men who stood as high as
any in the land in the social and
moral scales, have been found dere-
lict in honor and honesty; when
the heretofore unwavering conf
dence of the mass Of the COM
munity in their fduciary stability
has become weakened, if not
changed into distrust-at such a
time, perilous and threatening
to their usefulness where they were
publicly useful ; to their existence
where they but subserved the in
terests Of a few exclusive pets, often
but the members of "the board
and their special friends it is at a
time SO inauspicious to their con-
tinued hold on the public that a
step has been taken by the legisla-
ture Of moral Massachusetts which
is so palpably and so outrageously
unjust as to excite surprise at its
audacity of daring so to trespass
on public forbearance. The law
referred to places it in the power of
the bank commissioner Of the State
to authorize any Savings bank
therein to turn coolly around to
its depositors and tell them sub
stantially, "we will pay You ten per
cent. of the money you confdiDgly
trusted to orr care, and in a year, or
two or three, we will pay you more
from time to time, till we return it
all to you" In these United States,
within the last two decades, there
has been, as we all know, a great
deal of bad legislation good deal
of privilege-grantiDg legislation
but this rather caps the sheaf Of
arbitrary and wanton invasion
Of right. 1t bids fair in the Gland
of steady habits" as the New Eng
landers are wont to call their Sec
ton, to prove the overlooking hair
on the camers back and to rouse
them en- masse to demand the abro-
cation, all and singular, Of every
privilege-granting law from their
statute books. ga contamination
devOutly to be wished" as being il
the line Of that return to the origi
nal principles of equality our insti
buttons are based on and on whicl
all real republican government j
founded, which the perpetuity o
the peoples rights require. In GU
revolt from British arbitrary exac
tiGns-illegal as to the rights 0
Americans, subjects then to tn
British crown-the colonies 0
Massachusetts and South Carolin
led the way; perhaps in the found
alton now being laid for .retur
to the real independence of tn
equal rights of all, then achieved
the States so named may again lea
the way. 1t looks SO; South Care
lima, in one aspect, is just no
most censpicuously struggling an
achieving; Massachusetts is to tn
fore now in another. Where usuI
patton evils too much prevail, thel
resistance is soonest called out.