Fort Worth gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1891-1898, 1891-10-17
A CORRECTION THAT DOES NOT COR
RECT.

THE GAZETTE very willingly makes
room for the letter of Messrs. Bledsoe
& Legett, the Abilene attorneys of the
national bank that is contesting the
validity of the state law against the en-
forcement of usury. We do this be-
cause it is right that they should be
heard, and because it is the uniform
policy of The GAZETTE to permit criti-
cism of anything that may be said in
this paper.
But THE GAZETTE still holds that
what it said of the Abilene national
bank suit was and is founded in fact,
which is fairly attested by the admis-
sions of its attorneys. In the opinion
of most lawyers, the recent amendment
to the constitution fixing 10 per cent as
the maximum rate of interest, is now
in force. By the statement of the
banks attorneys it charged a higher
rate of interest than 10 per cent. This
is certainly violation of the constitu-
tional limitation, though it may not be
lighting the constitution"
One Of the defenses mentioned by
the banks attorneys is ''that the act
of congress commonly known as the
national banking law having fixed
and imposed uniform penalty for
charging or receiving greater rate of
interest than is allowed by the state.
no state law inflicting any other or
greater penalty can be enforced against
national banks" This is what THE
GAZETTE directly referred to when it
warned the national banks against
putting up as defense that they were
exempt from the operation OF laws and
penalties that could not be evaded by
citizens of the state, and which the
banks advocates very unskillfully con-
strue as an insinuation against the in
tegrity of the courts. THE GAzETTE'S
meaning was SO plain that no one who
reads to understand can take it as an
ambiguous reflection upon the courts.
We said then, as we say now, that the
Federal national banking law, which is
quoted from by Messrs. Bledsoe & Leg
EFT, may offer the banks legal means
of escape from the penalties OF the
Texas usury laws which could not be
pleaded by the ordinary citizen, but
the invoking OF this Federal law
making its beneficiaries, the national
bankers, superior to the other Great
ures OF the state, is likely to be an act
that will accelerate the movement for
the abolition Of the national banks.
There is nothing in this that can be
taken as inimical to the courts. They
simply declare the law as they find it.
AS THE GAZETTE said then, so it
says now, that the national congress,
with its great Democratic majority not
very friendly to the national banking
system, and the Farmers Alliance ar
rayed in strong opposition thereto, is
not likely to tolerate an assertion OF
this class that they may violate law
of state without being held to the
same penalties that would be put upon
citizen of the state who should violate
that law. This doctrine does not
''sound strange, coming from leading
Democratic paper of Texas" for it is
the sound Democratic doctrine that the
national authority shall not step in and
assert its superiority to state authority
IN matters of purely internal state con-
Germ.
The GAZETTE spoke with the friend
lest feeling for the national banks, and
for the Abilene banks and
bankers. The case made by them was
merely used as an example to illustrate
the danger OF appealing to Federal
legislation to suspend state legislation
in their behalf. We belief that ma
tional bankers in general saw the point,
il Messrs. Bledsoe l. Legett did not.