Weekly Chillicothe crisis. (Chillicothe, Livingston Co., Mo.) 1878-19??, 1879-02-27
The People Betrayed.

The scheme ofthe bondholders from the
start has been to get rid of the hateful
competing grcenback, that they might
substitute their own notes based upon
bonds, and thus control and monopolize
the whole money power of the country.
This is a dangerous power to trust to a
monopoly, over which society has no con-
troll. 1t is IL power greater than the exec
utive, tue legislative, and the judicial
combined. 1t is n power at whose feet
sovereignty lies, and within whose grasp
all authority is passive. A legislative
committee Of the state of New York, in
1918, said OF she United States bank, with
a capital of but 35,0O0,600
"Ofall aristocracies, none more COM
pletely enslaves than that of money; and,
in the opinion of your committee, no sys.
TEN was ever better deviaed so perfectly
to enslave community as that of our
banking establishments. Like the siren
ofthe fable, they enice to destroy.
They hold the purse strings Of society,
and, monopOliZing the whole of the circu-
lating medium of the country, they form a
precarious standard, by which all the
property in the country-homes, lands,
debts and credits, personal and real estate
OF all de, criptiOns-are valued, thus rem
dering the whole community dependent
on them; prescribing every man who dares
to expose their unlawful practices. We
see the desOlatiOn they have made IN socie-
eties that were before prosperous and hap
py, the ruin they have brought on the
country hurling thousands of industrious
and useful men and firms into the abyss of
ruin and despair
Senators and members of congress fall
under their influence, or become indebted
to the bank power for their seats, and thus
the wise end of our civil institutions may
some day be prostrated In the dust of cor
pOratiOns Of our own creation.
Mark the progress.
Prior to 1876 the volume of greenbacks
was limited by law to 40O,OO0,0O0, and
bank currency to S2,000,0O0,00O.
The resumption act Of 1875 provided
for the final eXtinglishment of the
former as fast as they could be presented
and redeemed after January |, 1879, while |
the same act removed all restrictions to
the bank issue, by authorizing both old
and new banks to increase their circula-
ton under the law, without respect to ag-
gregate limit.
Congress must, indeed, have had poor
opinion of it's own sagacity and high |
appreciation of its supreme imbeciity, to |
tie its own hands for fear that in an emcr-
genCy it might be induced to increase the |
volume above S400,0O0,000.
And when it resolved to abandon all
control over the money of the country at. |
ter January |, 1879, by delegating that
sacred and important trust to the nations |
creditors, did it realize that twas placing |
the only safeguard Of liberty and the re.
public's most important power and sover-
elgn prerogatiye IN the hands of foreign |
capitalists? Did congress not know that |
none but bond holders could 0e bankers? g.? |
Did it not know that our whole public |
debt had been handled, negotiated and |
placed by syndicate made up of partners
of foreign banking houses?
Did Congress not know that England |
had long had her eye on American indus
try, and was only waiting the eXtinguish.
ment of the peoples money, that through |
our bonds and bank institutions she might |
get her paw there, too?
the money power and prerogatives OF the
government was delegated to the bond |
holding creditors of the nation it would |
become the reins Of power in the hands of
foreign capitalists to drive us to the
devil2
Had congress so poor an opinion Of the |
intelligence Of its constituency, as to con
slider the dearest interests of the republic
safer in the hands of Il foreign mOncyed
aristocracy, than in the representatives, of
the peopleH
Did it see moral, intellectual and indus
trial bankruptcy in the republic that it
made an assignment Of our liberties for
the benefit OF the nations creditors?
If congress feels incompetent to exercise
the power delegated to it, and to admlnis-
ter the trusts confined in it, j, should re-
turn them to their rightfu o2lurs, and
not betray them into the hands Of their
enemies.
Our fathers carefully guarded the lib
critics of their posterity by providing that
no alien or foreigner who had not become
an American citizen by absolving all al
legiance to foreign powers, should have a
voice in, or exercise authority over the af,
fairs Of the republic. But the national
banking law places the most important
power, the power of all powers exercised
by government, in the hands of foreign
ers and aliens, king-lovers, and despot-
wOrshipperS, and deprives our own people
of the control over the great and import
ant instrument of association, that fiber OF
social organism, the life blood of social de.
velOpment and financial prosperity, the
money of the realm.