The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1888-10-16
A r
The Banking System Worse Than the
TariH--The Alliance of Ons-
low Speaks Plainly.

welfare of every class and condition
Of the people, are among the chief OBJ
jects for which our form OF govern
ment was ordained. All political
power is vested in and derived from
the people, and our system of govern
ment is founded upon their will only,
and is instituted solely for the good
of the whole. The general scope of
legislation, both Federal and State,
during the last twenty years and up,
wards, has not been in harmony with
these principles, nor has it been such
as to secure these ends, but the ten
dency has been rather to the subver-
sion thereof.
Continuing in force the Internal
Revenue system of taxation, long after
the emergency has passed which called
that scheme into existence; allowing
the tax of ten per cent. o. the circula-
ton of State banks of issue to remain
upon the statute unrepealed for more
than twenty years; imposing unreason-
able duties upon articles of prime necesc
sity; collecting evenue more than
sufficient to meet the current expenses
of government; sanctioning the &C
emulation of a vast surplus in the
Treasury of the United States; to-
gether with the oppressive rate of
direct taxation by the State on the
property of the citizens thereof; the
multiplication of offices and the high
salaries paid to officers in the public
service; the extravagant appropria-
tions of the public funds to many un-
profitable purposes; the extraordinary
scarcity of money, rapidly leading to
a famine in the article, inducing a
shrinkage in values and exorbitant
rates of interest on private loans; the
alarming and bewildering amounts of
Indebtedness secured by mortgages
ag~gregating thousands of millions of
dollars upon the farms in the Western
and Southern States, causing a de-
pressed and impoverished condition
of those directly or indirectly engaged
in agricultural pursuits, comprising
the most numerous part of our popu-
~lation, are some of the melancholy,
but unhappily too convincing proofs
of the incompetency or infdelity of
those who in public affairs have exer-
cised a controlling influence for the
past twenty-odd years.
Although the present tariff has
been for a long period a fruitful source
of mischief to the farmers and other
industrial classes, yet very many, in
deed the largest proportion of griev-
ances which distress the great mass of
our people at this time are the off
spring of Federal laws on banking
and currency. The Act of Congress
laying a tax Of ten per cent. on the
circulation Of all State banks of issue
operates as the highest sort of a pro-
tective Or prohibitory tariff on money,
as prohibition and not revenue is the
ostensible point to be gained, and
thus by destroying all competition be-
tween State banks of issue and the
National banks in effect it gives not
only the absolute monopoly of issuing
bank notes to the latter, thereby in
vesting them with large power over
money which they have not been slow
to use to their own aggrandizement,
but by the centripetal force of the
National Banking system, it gives also
the amplest opportunities for the for
nation of "trusts," "pools," "syndi-
Gates" and other combinations of
capital for the colossal enrichment of
a few by the extreme impoverishment
of the many; and by virtue of this
dominion over the currency of the
country, impaired to the system by
operation of law, the National banks
may act judiciously upon the interests
of all divisions of society, and exercise
a preponderating influence over the
political affairs of the country
power which experience teaches us will
always be exerted for the benefit of
the real "party in interest"
The National Banking system being
based upon the bonds of the United
States, will supply the communities,
where the bonds are owned in large
bulk, with more money than is re-
ouired to answer the demands of
legitimate traffic, but where there are
no government bonds, there can be no
National banks, and the people of the
Western and Southern States, not be-
ing the owners of government bonds
to any appreciate extent, cannot have
banks of issue sufficient In number
and capital to provide them money
enough to meet the necessities of
business, and therefore are dependent,
for such amounts as are needed, upon