Waterbury evening Democrat., 1894-02-17
LETTERS FROM THE PEOPLE
The National Banking system Condemned
 by "Calamity Howler."

1 General Master w Orkm0n J. h. SOFeftlSI of the Knights of Labor. In his effort tc keep the people from being further bur dened and as for MT Sovereign swallowing himself in his fight for the people, 1 an | sorry that your editor has such an intense love for him, that you use your editorial | columns 10 gain for him the public sym pathy. I also note your admiration for T V. Powderly, but I am strongly impressed that Mir Powderly would have proceeded the same course as his successor, as he has expressed his approv of the action taken. Now, as for one of about 300, ,00O members that requested Mir Sovereign to take the position he did, and for the following reasons, which I think fairly good, and probably would be interesting for your readers: It is said that gold is paid out for the current needs of the government because there is little money of any other kind in the treasury, This is said to be the reason why the gold fund keeps de- creasing, and why it has decreased to S65, GOO ,OO0 This is the situation which causes the issue of Secretary Carlisle's $50, ,OOO, GOO of bonds, which were from the first expected, with the premium to bring SG0 GOO GOO. Now to Illustrate: Is there anybody, who in this fix, granting that the gold reserve must be kept on hand, would increase it in that way. Is there a work ingman who wishing to keep. say S1OO in gold, would spend that hundred if he could get hold of other kind of money. Let us say, what we know is not true; that his promise to pay, in other words, his note, would pass as money. Let us say he was keeping that S1OO in gold because he had promised to pay S1O0 in gold to some body when his debt fell due. Would he pay that gold out for ordinary debts, if he could pass his own notes for ordinary debts, If he had spent $50 of his gold money and feared he could not meet his S1OO gold obligation would he not at least stop paying out gold for ordinary debts and then commence paying in his notes. Certainly that is how most men would act and think with reason. But that is not how Secretary Carlisle and the United States government do it. Oh, no. They plunge the country deeper in the financial bog. They borrow gold and promise to pay gold back after many years, mean while paying interest on the vast amount every year up to the time of final settle ment. The same public is willing to take the governments notes, that Is United States paper money for all ordinary debts, but the government, through A1r Carlisle, says: Yes, you would take it, but we pre- fer not to make our simple note of hand to satisfy your claims on us. We prefer to borrow more money for you, pay your in tereSt on 1t, then take that money we get from you and pay our ordinary debts to you. We first get rid of large part of our gold reserve for ordinary debts which could be satisfied with ordinary money and then when we get sufficiently deep in the hole will issue bonds tor gold and build up that gold reserve again. That is to say if an ordinary man had promised to pay S1OO in gold and would spend $50 of it for ordinary debts he would go to the pawnbroker and borrow gold money, with his house as security to get the $50 that would be required to make good his hundred. He would not borrow plain money on his house to pay plain debts and keep his hundred gold dollars intact, but he would fix things so that in the future he would have still more gold money to pay to the pawnbroller when he went to settle up. Now, that SO-calleu calamity howler, as you term him iii your editorial columns, J. R. Sovereign, who says this: If tue government can issue bonds and promise to pay gold interest for wears and then pay up the principal in gold too, and if the people trust enough ill these bonds to buy them and believe they will be paid back, then why don't the governments notes go just we'll. In other words, if the government can make paper bond valuable by signing the government name to 1t why can it not pay off its hands, its holders and work ingmen in paper dollar notes, surely both are evidences of indebtedness. Then why IS not that money note just as good Il record of value as the bond note. It Is ill fact il good deal better for the people, for they will havs to pay no interest on It, and whilst the people Is ruled out of court by Judge Cox, we do pay the interest on the bonds whether we enjoy any good from them or not But we do not merely pay interest on them. It does not stop there. The government allows a few bondholders to come together and say We will start a national bank-a bank of issue. Then they send their bonds to the United States treasury to be kept there as guarantee. They keep on getting interest though. For every one hundred dollars worth of bonds thus kept at the treasury the United States government prints ninety paper dollars in bank notes and gives them for nothing to the gentlemen who stock the bank; then ninety dollars out of every hundred the banks lend to our employees and merchants on good security. And again the banks, the associatian of bond holders. those fellows you told about i'll vour editorial last week, of chow Secretary Carlisle gave to understand, etc These are the ones that gets interest. This in~ terest we, the people, pay again. The in- tarest is represented in every railroad fare and every bite of bread we take. Do you ever hear of banks coming to the rescue of farmers when they want to send their products to the market, when the big mortgage interest is due. Does the prod at it does the farmers mortgage increases and that interest is added to the cost of your bread before it enters your mouth. But this is not all, the national banks being private corporations of business men can come together and do come together. That was one of their meetings you spoke editorially of how Carlisle was so fearless of them. They come together and resolve to make money plenty or scarce. They can force every borI over to pay up when his money is due or they can extend his time They may either lend freely or re- fuse to lend freely. How is it now, when they refuse to lend freely, there Is less money in circulation than when they lend freely. This is the national banking sys. l tenn. Now let every American ask him. 1 self is it right for the law to let any pri vate association of business men issue and
 
 I certificates of value of labor and products which certificates the constitution of the | United States reserves to the United States to make. Yet in the last few days
 you, with hundreds of other newspapers | have charged that the executive and the rank and file of the order of the Knights of Labor were unpatriotic, because they opposed the printing of bonds when gov ernment money could have been made and bonds could not then have been gotter by the bankers to perpetuate their system of squeezing double interest out of th' people. In conclusion please allow me tt quote two sayings from the patriotic Abraham Lincon, one was: Beware, ant don't let money concentrate in the hands
 of few. The other was--that you could fool some of the people all the tune, bu you could not fool the whole-of the peopl
 all the time.
 | DANIEI. F. KELLY,
 One of the Calamity HowlerS