The evening herald. [volume] (Shenandoah, Pa.) 1891-1966, 1892-09-27
NO WILDCAT BANKS.
The Farmer and WOrkingman
Demand a Sound Currency.
The Policy Of the Democrats
Would Bring Confusion.

The President OF the Farmers Ali.
ance Takes Strong Ground Against
the Scheme Concocted by the Fol.
lowers Of Cleveland in Framing /
the Chicago Platform.
NEW YORK, Sept 81
The more the people look into the Demo
cratic proposition to repeal the 10 per cent.
tax on state bank issues the greater be-
comes the fear OF the results of such a |
course President Livingston, of the |
Farmers Alliance in a circular letter to |
the workingmen of the country on the sub |
ject, relates some of his own experiences |
as loser by the state bank currency sys
tenn, when he was in business as pub.
Usher, from the forties along into the six
ties, by reason of the wildcat system He
goes on to say:
"The farmers and planters products
good as gold, should at all times be paid
for with an honest dollar worth a hundred
cents No more direful calamity could be
fall them than return to state bank is
sues-a retrograde movement of dangerous
character Such a currency, good one day
anu EbbNl A0I lollluk llt utALs - lpl
wanted by the farmer, whose wheat and
corn and cotton are always worth gold, or
its equivalent, at the hundred cents. A
seventy cent dollar would cheat him to the
extent OF thirty cents.
The Present Currency Secure.
''The national bank currency, always
and everywhere, being secured by bonds of
the national government, safe as the gold
ifgplf gnnDliae paGtuirprNaT1t Rnt
to carry out the eighth plank of the Dem
ocratic platform would be a vicious and
destructive act, involving the country in
confusion and discredit-would tend to
disestablish the best system the country
ever had and return to the financial dis
fractions of thirty-five years ago-a long
step backward, resulting disastrously to
capital and labor"
Mr.. Livingston's circular, forcible as it
is, is merely a suggestion of the multi
| tudinous ills born of and concommitant
with the miserable old wildcat banking
system. The history of that system would
make volume, and the present tendency
on the part of the Democrats to repeal the
tax on state bank issues is dOubly danger
Ous because the present generation does
not know that history. 1t has had no ex
perience with a debased bank note cur
rency. If men who have come upon the
stage of action in these latter days under
stood just what the Democrats hope to ac-
complish by repeating this tax they would
resist it even to the limit of revolution.
Death of Wildcat Banking.
Wildcat banking died in 1868 by the
hand of Salmon p. Chase at the command
of Abraham Lincoln. But men of an older
day remember well how banks were Gre
/ 4
and territory legislature. In New England
and some of the older states the banks were
limited to the issue of three dollars in notes
foreach dollar of capital. Some provisions
were made for The security of the holders
of their notes, but in some of the states
there was no restriction on the issue of
bills and no security required for their pay
ment, and charters for the latter class
were readily procured The wildcat banker
was ordinarily speculatOr-trader with
out capital "a lobbyist, or worse, who
knew how to get charters from easy going
! legislatures. A lumber shanty or a shingle
mill served for banking house, and bust
ness was confined to the exchange of limsy
notes for convertible property. When
specie was demanded in return for them
the bank failed, and as it had no assets to
be looked after the banker packed his
| gripsack and sought fresh fields and pas
| lures new.
His bank notes, to the amount of scores
of thousands Of dollars, remained in the
pockets of the swindled individuals, not
worth the paper on which they were
printed.
Since the Illumination by the Democrats
at Chicago of plan to restore this monu-
mental system of bad money, there have
come to the members of the Republican
national committee vast quantities of this
old, irresponsible, valueless irTedeemable,
damnable currency The notes, from all
sections of the country, have been sent in
such letters as this; IF these witnesses to
the danger and disaster that are bound to
be the result Of a resumption of. the old
wildcat banking system can be put to any
use in urging the voters of this country to
vote against it, use them. They represent
commodities and labor which should have
been paid for at par"
Rascality thrived under the old wildcat
system.