Hot Springs weekly star. (Hot Springs, S.D.) 1892-1917, 1896-10-16
NO MONEY is TOO GOOD.
Maj. Mckinley Recalls the Davs Of
State Banks and Wildcat
Currency.

Maj. Mckinley said to delegation
from Indiana which visited his home OH
September %:
believe in America for Americans
native-born and natrralizcd. (Applause.) }
l believe in the American pay roll.
daughter and applause.) And do not
believe in diminishing that pay roll by
giving work to anybody else under am
other flag while we have an idle man
under our flag. Wrcmendous applausc.) }
-Four years ago the laborer was agitat-
ing the question of shorter hours. We
then had SO much to do. have heard
no discussion of that kind for four years.
daughter and applause.) But l have
never heard of the laboring man dis
cussing the desirability of having short
dollars. The complaint-tle chief cause
OF complaint of our opponents is first,
that we have not enough money; and,
(Laughter.) To the first complaint l
answer that the per capita of circulating
medium i'll this country has been greater
since the so-called crime of 1873 than it
ever was before lapplauseD. and that it
has has been greater in the last five years
of .That's rigllt.' We have not only
the best money in the world, but we have
more of it per capita than most of the
nations of the world. (4Applause.) We
have more money per capita than the
United Kingdom per capita; than Ger
many, than Italy, than Switzerland,
Greece; Spain. Roumania. Scrvia, Aus.
tria, Hungary, Norway. Sweden, Den
mark, Russia, Mexico and the Central
and South American states, and more
than Japan or China. Great applause. D
So that some reason rather than the lack
of volume of money must be found TO
account for the present condition of the
To the second. complaint that our
money is too good, it would seem to be
enough to say that the money of any
country cannot be too good; and that
no nation ever suffers from having it's
medium Of exchange of the highest and
best quality. (Grear applause.) 1t has
been poor nloney-not good money-that
has been the cause of so much loss and
ruin in the past. both to individuals and
to nations. (Applanse) The older men
of this audience will remember that be-
fore the war we did business with an un-
as state bank money. Many of these
banks and their notes We're absolutely
sound; but for the most part they were
subject to discount. The total num-
Der of banks in 1860, exclusive of state
bank branches. was 1870. Of this
uuuuOeT, Tue COuuleIlelI OeIeCtOr.
then in constant use. reported
S32 as ''broken, closed, failed,
fraudulent and worthless" The notes
of these banks were in circulation
among the people and had been received
by them for their good labor and their
good products. They were absolutely
worthless and of no more value than the
paper upon which they were printed. Up-
on whom did this loss fall, my citizens? !?
There is scarcely an old gentleman in this
audience who will not recall that it fell
upon the laboring man and the farmers
Of the United States. (Cries of '.That's
rightly I allude to this only to show
that those who suffer most from poor
money are the least able to bear the loss
1t is the history of mankind that the least
valuable money which will pass current
is the money that at last finds it's resting
the crash comes. the loss must be borne
by them. And doubt if there is a man
in this audience who has not among the
belongings of his family or the family Of
his father some of the old bank paper as
reminder of what they lost. "a voice:
i have $40 at home myself.'') cannot
imagine any interest that can be per.
manently subserved by having poor mon.
ey. The bare suggestion of such propo-
sition to man of reason meets its in.
slant rejection.