The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1894-11-28
BANKS HARD ATWORk
THEY ARE ACTIVE IN SHAPING
CURRENCY LEGISLATION.
Their Plan Will Be to Still Hold
on to Money.


WASHINGTON, d. c.. Nov. lS.If talk
and confab and verbal ghost dancing We're
news, there would be no end to present
capital output. 1t is about all that is
doing here at this time. Some of it may,
however, bear crop of conditions and
hardy facts in near hour which will be.
For one thing Faulkner, who had charge
of the late congressional campaign com
mittee, and in which shoulder-knot ca
pacity he did yeoman work, has had
talk with Cleveland and Carlisle. 1t
about those measures of finance and
schemes of currency which a world says
Cleveland will soon propose to be struggled
with, and passed or trodden down in con-
gress. AS a come-out of this conference,
Faulkner will retain the skeleton of his
committee machinery-say 4 score of clerks
and shorthand people-the whole having a
mission to instruct the public in the mys-
teries and sterling virtues of the admins
tration's coming financial proposals. In
other words, Faulkner and these aides will
act as a propaganda, teaching whatever
new gospel of currency the White House
declares. This is all right. one cannot
tious congressman from Missouri, over
thrown in the late melee of politics. tele
graphed in: THE cause of my defeat was
the intelligence of the people
But there is one force among US to push
the coming currency scheme. the propriety
and good, genuine faith of which may well
be doubted. And it is expected. too, that
this second force as incident to its own di-
rect campaigning will pay the expenses of
l.
sinister element. which is to unsheath its
clay more for these new plans of finance
whatever they he, or whenever they come
is the national bank list from ocean to
ocean. Boston to San Francisco.
In the extra session fight to repeal uncor-
ditionally the silver purchase clause of the
sherman law the national banks cut most
considerable figure and made more Roadway
in pulling through the repeal than every
other agency besides. The banks during
those long weeks when the senate filibuster-
ers made another Thermopolae for silver in
the narrow passes of the senate rules the
national banks all over the land became
lobbyists for the passage of the measure.
They departed from the ordinary rule of the
third house and instead of tackling con-
gress direct-abet, they did that. too--they
managed their main effect by lobbying with
the people. Their scheme was simple. but
irresistibly convincing. They refused to
lend money or make discounts, and in the
dishonored the checks and drafts of their
own depositors. giving in each narrowing
instance the one reason of the silver rur-
chasing clause of the Sherman law. Re
peal the purchasing law; stop This luying
of silver millions month, and you can
borrow all the money YOU want" That was
the reply of the banks. they turned down
the applications for loans. And that reply,
made in every state and territory in the
Union, did more to make public sentiment
in favor of speedy silver purchase repeal
than all else that was said OF done on that
extra session occasion.
WILL FOLLOW EXTRA SESSION
TACTICS.
We'll gratified with past successes. hope
full of more, the banks are preparing to
come to the backs of these new currency
plans now incubatin9 with Carlisle. and to
be Matched, say the henwives of the adj
ministration, in, Clevelands next message
to congress. 1t is presumed the banks will
adopt the tactics of the extra session hour
clutch their money, hold fast and refuse
to lend until whatever is offered in the line
of finance is adopted. Then everybody re-
fused at the banks and needing money
being told they can come and get It upon
favorable action by congress touching said
currency plans Will bend to his pen and
write letters to his congressman" de-
handing complacent haste on his part,
which is the effect the banks will be aiming
at as they hug their money. The great
danger to the banks in all this is perhaps
not immediate, but no less plain. This sec-
ond exhibition of bank lobbying iardly
year following the first may teach people
too much of the banks and their power.
And after the squeeze is over the people
may take serious shears in hand and ex-
cessively clip the bank pinions, not TO say
the bank claws.