The daily morning journal and courier., 1896-07-30
FREE SILVER AND SAVINGS
DIsASTRo US EFFECTS TO 100000 OF
 THRIFTY PERSONS.

New York Savings Bank Presidents on the
 sound Money Issue-An Imitation of Cur
 rency Would Reduce the Value of Thous-
 ands of Small Fortunes in Their Banks-
 Chicago Platform ap Attack on Thrift
 New York, July 2s-The Evening Sun
 tonight says; There are In this coun-
 try about 2,OOO savings banks, in which
 during the year 1895 there was on de-
 posit $1,S44,357, 79S. This vast sum rep
 resents the savings of working people
 It is for the most part money earned by hard labor, saved and put away TOT rainy day after long periods of econ omy and often of privation, deposited in the savings institutions because there it earns interest and is guardeo by laws passed so to restrict tnelr investments as to give the depositor the greatest possible security. The
 savings banks are distinctly the banks
 of the laboring man and woman. For them they have been organized, with out capital or stock; for them they are lIldIdSeQ ny DudIuS ol U u9tSN9 NAANs
 give their services gratuitously.
 Statistics show that the number or | savings bank depositors in this coun- try to-day is over 4,000,000. In the face | of the silver agitation arises the ques- 1 ton as to how this great class would l be affected by the free coinage of sil- yer at a ratio of IS to 1. The presi- dent of one of the largest savings banks of this city when seen to-day | expressed his views in the following manner:
 "Manifestly the free coinage of sll- yer would work evil to the man who has by dint of hard labor and economy
 scraped together a few hundred or a -ew thousand dollars and placed it in one of the 2,000 or more savings banks in this country Every one of those 100000 depositors is capitalist, for the man who has 50 cents in bank and all his debts paid is capitalist to that extent. just as the man whose deposit l reaches to hundreds of thousands. They represent the thrifty laboring people-the small storekeepers, the clerks, the artisans and the day labor ! CTS. The Chicago platform is an ad- mitted attack on capital, inspired by the debtor class. The free silver agi-
 tators would lead the people to believe that 1t is aimed at the capitalists with | millions, but as the capitalist with a
 million would be affected by free silver so would a capitalist with but s10 in
 the savings bank The free coinage of
 silver would be blow to the 4,0o0. .0o0
 or thrifty persons who have deposited
 m the savings banks of the country
 almost two billions of dollars. Why? The depesitors in the savings banks are for the most part men and women who have worked hard to gather to- 1 gether little money for a rainy day. This they have deposited in the savings banks at time when every dollar was worth 100 cents in gold coin, because the government stands ready to redeem | every dollar in silver with one in gold l Suppose we should have free coinage l Gold certainly would not circulate if it 1 was undervalued by the coinage of sil- | yer at ratio of 16 to 1. A given weight l of gold, as is known, is in the market
 to-day worth over thirty times as much
 as an equal weight of silver. Conse- l quently, as past experience has proved. | it would either go out of the country or
 be boarded We would quickly slide to
 silver basis, like China, Japan or In ] dia. Gold would go to a premium. A silver dollar would be worth just what the bullion in 1t is worth in the market
 about 53 cents in our money to-day So the thrifty people who deposited dol
 lars in the savings banks when we were on a sound financial basis would under free coinage have their deposits dwin-
 de to about one-half their value. l Every dollar of interest that they | would draw would be worth but 5
 cents according to our standard to-day. They would receive coin called one