The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1893-07-28

the people," Yet there are no signs of
that prosperity which the Populists
have been wont to predict would flow
from such conditions. The result of
putting the money into the pockets of
the people is apparently that money is
harder to get than ever, and the men
who want to borrow find it more diff
cult than ever to find lenders. The Pop
ulist theory does not work The more
the deposits in the banks are distributed
among the people the tighter money be-
comes. The demonstration of the fall
lacy of their theory has not progressed
far enough to convince the Populists of
course. Nothing short of the abolition
of all the banks and the transfer of all
the money to the pockets of the people
would be sufficient. Then if money
was still tight they might be inclined to
reconsider their theory.
But to the majority of the people who
are not welded to any theory, but are
willing to examine the facts and draw
the inference which they suggest, the
present situation will prove an object
lesson of the value and the necessity of
banks which they will not soon forget.
A bank is not, as the Populists and the
old Greebackers have been wont to regard
it, an institution for boarding money,
but for distributing it. To be sure
money is collected in it, just as water is
collected in the city reservoir, but the
object of collecting it is to distribute it.
A bank is really cooperative institution
by which one man assists another, and
through the instrumentality of which
ali get more of the comforts of life than
they would otherwise enjoy. Some men
earn more money than they need for
their daily wants. They accumulate a
surplus. Now they can treat this sur
plus in two ways. They can keep it
lying idle in their pockets after the Pop
ulist theory, or they can through the
agency of a bank lend it to person en-
gagged in some enterprise-say the in
PRODUCTION of a supply of water or cleo
trio lights or the building of a railroad
or a steamboat-all of them things that
will conduce to the comfort and well be-
ing of the community. theoretically
it may be possible to distribute this sur
plus without the agency of banks, and to
some extent it is done, but the banks
make the distribution much more easy
and also secure its distribution with
much more safety to it's owners. The
bank is as much a necessity of modern
civilization as the water reservoir. With
out it all industries would languish.
Without it no great enterprise for the
benefit of humanity could be carried
through. When a man talks about
abolishing the banks and putting all the
money into the pockets of the people
he is talking as foolishly as if he should
propose the abolition of reservoirs for
the supply of water and reliance upon
individual wells. 1t may be set down as
a general rule that the less money in the
banks the tighter the money market.
When money is put into the banks it is
put in for distribution. When it is drawn
out in large quantities, especially when
it is drawn out by small depositors, it is
drawn out to be boarded, and is with
drawn from circulation. One of the
chief difficult es of the present situation
is that money ordinarily in circulation,
is tucked away in safety deposit vaults
or as the Populists put it, is kept in
the pockets of the people.