Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1879-10-16

volume, and, as Gen. Ewing says, to raise or
lower values. Does not every sane IA IN see
that from that very moment the business
community viii stand still, all its energies
paralyzed by the uncertainty as to what
congress, or its motive power, the Demo
cratic caucus will do next? For, be it re.
Numbered, however august a body that may
| be, IT cannot be said TO have inspired the
country with superlative conf ience in its
wisdom
Superfnous fears says Gen. Ewing. We
shall en- Joy the confidence of the business
community, for we are not going to increase
the volume OF the currency, and thus raise
values and set business kiting again? In.
deed can ne really imagine that such pro-
ceedings can possibly be received by the
business community with anything but the
deepest distrust? i SO, he must be unmind-
full OF several important circumstances. In
the first place thing so nprecedented, SO
incom prehensible to the common.sense of
mankind, as wholly unnecessary, wanton
suspension of specie payments, Immediately
after successful resumption, in time of
peace, OF reviying business, and growing
prosperity, with a treasury full of coin, will
! impress the whole ciyiliz ed world with the
belief that the financial affairs of this
country must be governed by gang of
sharpers or a set of lunatics Such a return
TO irredeemable paper money and subse-
| quent inf .tion might indeed raise the
hopes of some foolish people, who
have learned nothing and forgot
ten nothing. But the present generation of
American business men are not of that
kind. They have gone through the process
of raising values by the expansion OF ire
deemable paper money already once. They
! have learned to appreciate the deceptive
! prosperity of such q ballooning period at
its true value, and they painfully remember
the crash following upon it which over
whelmed them with disaster. That hard
earned experience will be constantly before
! their eyes. Such birds are not caught with
such chaff twice. Aud, let me add, their
distrust will be all the greater just because
the fnanciers of the Ewing school predict
good result They will remember that as
prophets these gentlemen were a sorry fail
ure; that whenever they predicted storm
you could safely arrange for 81 picnic, and
| when sunshine was On their bills it was
time to take out your water-proofs.
Now, when such men sit together in eau
Gus to do what even the wisest and most ex-
perienced fnanciers can not do with &C.
curacy, namely, to determine how much
currency the country is to have for its bust
ness and when they manipulate the volume
of the currency for the very purpose of
! lowering raising all current values, will
not then business men feel very much like
the inhabitants of house who know that
there is a lot of boys in the cellar playing
with lucifer matches around an open barrel
of gunpowder? Unquestionably they will.
While the financial adventures and gamb-
lers Inay venture forth, the capitalists will
hasten to withdraw his funds from the
reach cf mischief, and the prudent business
man will restrain his spirit of enterprise,
waiting for better times, when sensible and
g \ - e..
This is certainly Dota condition of things in
which business can thrive and prosper but
so it would inevitably be.
THE NATIONAL BANKS.
Now, while the = enocratic leader de-
clares that the power g to expand or con-
| tract the currency, TO raise and lower values,
| to give prosperity or inf ct Distress" should
be exercised by the government, he insists
also that such power must above all things
rot be committed to the hands of individ-
uals or corporations, least of all to corpora
tons (meaning the national banks) repre-
senting the holders of public and private
Indebtedness aUhOSe aU6Glth rs increased bV
every fall of prices and diminished By eve2y
rise" For, as he says, if the national banks,
"acting as they always do, in the interest of
holders of money securities, are permitted
TO control the volume of the currency at
their pleasure, there is no limit to the in
the wealth they may accumulate by hidden
and concerted measures of expansion and
contraction of values.
Here is the wonderful discovery made by
the Democratic leader, that it is in the in
terests of the national banks to ruin their
customers by contracting the currency.
There has been so much demagogy and
loose talk, so many appeals to popular
prejudice and ignorance in the warfare
against the national banks, thatit is delight
full to have at least one of the great lights of
the infs zion Democracy expose by his own
statement the whole absurdity of their ar
guments. Let US examine it. What are
the national banks? They are joint-stock
corporations formed under the law for the
purpose of carrying on, under the super
vision of the government, the business OF
banking, which consists in receiving and
holding deposits, making loans to business
men, discounting notes and bills, selling
exchanges, etc. The national banks are also
authorized, upon the deposit of government
, bonds in the treasury, to circulate certain
proportional amount of bank currency, also
under the supervision of the government
That is all
1t is the custom of certain class of poll.
ticians to denounce the national banks as
monopoly, or, to make it sound badly, as
the monopoly of the money power. Let us
} see how much of monopoly there in them
Do they consist of few great moneyed in
situations, welding a large concentrated
power? No, there are about 2, 100 of them
7 separate establishments, scattered all over
the country. Are they in the control of q
, few rich men? No, the stockholders who
own them number about $1,000. They live
, in all parts of the country, belong to all the
, different classes of society, and to all politi
cal parties. Over one half of the 10000
stockholders hold shares to the amount OF
$1,000 or less each. They are evidently not
moneyed aristocrats, but people who have
Invested their little savings in bank stock
Can any one national bank control SO large