The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1895-06-14
Slavery, New and Old.

money in the banks; they had
promised to pay on demand
amounting to sci million dollars;
and the difference between to two
amounts shows 381 millions of credit
coined out of confdence-coining
out of nothing and returning to
nothing at the will of the banks.
Those 3S1 millions of credit dollars
effect exchanges and settle balances
and do the work that an actual
dollar does. Those banks, in an
swer to the demands of business,
coin credit dollar out of nothing,
and are the strenuous advocates of
gold basis, which perpetuates a
system of doing business upon
credit dollars, because there is not
gold enough to make the number of
metal dollars demanded by the
necessities of business. A credit
dollar made of their wind is. by
their teachings, preferable dollar
to one made of silver, which rep
resents some labor and always car
ries with it a commodity of some
value as collateral. Can anyone
fail to understand that banks are
Gin it" for business, and that a
silver dollar interferes with their
monopoly?
They tell also of the '!surplus
reserve" of these banks the same
date, May 25, of 80 million dollars,
and how much ''money is piled up"
in the New York banks. Where is
it, and what is it? Checks of de
positors for ISL million of dollars
would draw every dollar out of the
banks and leave the banks subject
to the checks of 3S1 million dollars
additional before the banks had
paid the dollars they were obligat,
ed to pay on demand by their
promises in the depositors' books.
And every one of these credit
dollars is hired to exchange the
products of labor; and the consumer
pays the interest charge! Out of
the proceeds of every mans toll a
portion goes to enrich the few who
have this privileged! Every pro-
Queer is bonded by law to support
the banker who, by this law, owns
a title to a portion of what the man
produces. We have spoken only
of New York; bnt the system covers
the whole country.
Years ago the condition of four
million of black men, valued at
400 millions of dollars, aroused the
great moral sentiment of the nation;
because some few men owned these
black men and took from them all
they produced except home, a
comfortable living, attention in
sickness and burial at death. The
men who held the title to the pro-
duct of these black men were known
as slave owners of the South. Only
400 million dollars in these "vested
rights at that time-but what a
terrible conflict it produced? To
day, in New York alone, a few men
hold title to 400 million of their
dollars created out of nothing, but
priced in human flesh somewhere,
that must ''render tribute to Cesar"
and as result of this system of
with non-producers who
hold no honest title, homes are
broken up, virtue thrown to the
winds, children starved or are
reared in ignorance, and white men
seek refuge from despair in suicide. |
This system takes the proceeds of
toll and is obliyious to what be-
comes of toll. What God. given
right has this system against the
inalienable rights of man to own
what he produces Wherein does
the new slavery differ from the old.
except that its relation with hell
can be more easily and clearly dem
onstrated! The slavery of the South
was gcd-like and christian COM
pared with the slavery imposed
hnnncf toll ri