Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1894-11-28
HIDING THEIR MONEY.
PEOPLE ARE AFRAID TO TRUST
THE BANKS.
Prof. ThOs. T.. Hill Makes an Able Ar
gument for Government Banking-
Shows That IL Would Create Conf
denco and Result In Prosperity.
Chicago Express.

chicago Express.
Hundreds of millions of dollars are
continually hidden by the great mass
of common people in stockings, pocl-
cts, safes, safety repositories and else
where, and all this because they have
no confidence in the banks as they are
at present conducted. They have very
distinctly in mind the remembrance of
long line of bank failures, extend
ing as far back as they can recollect,
IN which friends, neighbors and pos
sibly they themselves have thus lost
money. They do not need to look
back very far into the past. 1t is a
little more than year since when
over eight hundred banks tumbled to
pieces in the United States, and of
that number seventy-two nationa
banks failed during the thirty-one
days of July, 1893, and thirty-two of
these went down in the first seven
days of that month.
Hundreds of thousands, millions of
dollars thus lost by the common people
have never been recovered and never
will be. What wonder, therefore,
that the masses of the people are con-
tinually secreting their money and
Withholding it from circulation, MAX
ing scarcity and the conditions which
enable the money lenders to get an
eHorbitant interest on their loans?
II 10
situation that under present condi-
tions Of banking no means exist
whereby money can ever be made
permanently abundant There may
be times when confidence is so
restored, temporarily, that business
men will freely place their money in
the banks, but let there be n few bank
failures and money goes out of sight
as quickly as crowd will disperse on
the arrival of a person afflicted with a
contagious disease.
What folly to talk of making con-
tinual abundance of money in circula-
tion when people so lack confidence in
banks they will not trust them. OF
what avail to have the volume of
money increased 10y the addition of
$1,000, ,O0p,0 600 in greenbacks, or by an
equal amount in silver and gold, if the
people will not place it in the banks
by which it can come into circulation?
The situation that confronts us
steadily and sternly is perpetual
scarcity of money. 1t will be claimed
that there is an abundance of money
In the banks at the present time. But
this affords no relief in the rural dis
tricts. Has any one heard of n reduc-
tion of interests on farm loans? Has
any one heard of any means by which
farmer can borrow 81 of national
bank? Does any one know of any
farmer who borrows money escaping
the highest legal interest and a com
mission besides to broker who finds
the money? Does any one know of a
person who is compelled to borrow
money on chattels who escapes with
less interest than from to per cent
1. month?
And yet this excessive interest is eat,
ing out the vitals of the nation. Every
enterprise of every description is sup
pressed in consequence, and workmen
stand in idleness as the result. In a
steady struggle with drouth, grass
hopPers, winds and low prices, the
farmer has burdens enough to bear;
but when the additional weight of
large interest rests on his shoulders
he prospect of lifting the mortgage is
exceedingly slim. And so he lives on,
year after year, in the shanty house,
while the workmen who should erect