Birmingham state herald. (Birmingham, Ala.) 1895-1897, 1896-10-04


should be taken away, as 1t mad been
from British silver coins in 1876 it would
be absolutely impossible for our people to
pay the public debt and it would fasten
It's tentacles, like q devil fish, upon the
earnings of the people and draw the
interest, like wasting blood, from them
through many centuries.
We then had our first crop of million
aires and multimilionaires-the holders
of our coin bonds, and other ill-gotten
wealth. They aped the maneouvers of the
rich gentry and nobility of Europe; es-
poused the creed, that a national debt
is national blessing, to which they still
adhere, and soothing with proud disdain
| the cranks, lunatics, and regulators,
who claim the right to pay coin debt iIA
silver dollars, demand more bonds, and
| the increased bounties of higher tariff
taxation, to raise larger dowry-a big
| ger "tot'-with which to sell their daugh-
| ters for titles to dissolute noblemen in
| Europe. With the first thrust of their
| sickles into this harvest of destruction
| they filled our country with the new
| American Order of Tramps.
Listen to some statistics as to the social
changes wrought in our country by the
! fatal gold policy: Eleven million five
hundred and sixty thousand two hundred
and ninety-three families own $685.
| 552,072; 1129,S59 families own $46,O9S, $780,
| 125; one-tenth of our people own more
| than the other nine-tenths by 1923, 159, 9S7.
80. Nineteen per cent of all the wealth
of the United States, $65,O37 091 ,197, is
owned by millionaires who are one-third
of per cent of our population.
If the population is 10000, 100000, the
number of millionaires is 2S,S3S--a pretty
good crop for one war, aided by the black
act of 1878. If the gold standard, bond
issuing democracy, led by Mckinley,
Sherman. Cleveland and Palmer, rule the
country, in thirty more years we will
have twice that number. Have the rich
classes suffered for gold because the ''in-
sane" democracy have worked so hard
for silver? Since 1878, when we began
to coin silver dollars under the Bland
Allison act we have added our stock of
gold by coinage, 1907 Sal 1898, and by i'm
portation $140, 696, 46S, making total of
81 ,099, 1886, 1866
sFrom 1871 to 1878 we imported no gold
and coined $2l,S1S,6S5. Those were the
darkest days in our financial history.
The gain of gold during our period of
silver coinage was 81 091 1886, 466, of which
the mint report for 1895 states we have
now $579, 400, 907 in gold, and in silver coin
$500, 24S, 655. So it is not because silver
drives gold out Of the country that the
act of 1873 was passed and is now de-
manded again by the candidates of the
gold trust, nominated by the wandering
tribes, and who are led by Belmont and
the Rothschilds to the shrine of the gol-
den calf, sired by John Bull.
In 1873 when our production of silver
was only $250,00G less than our production
of gold, the bondholders saw that their
bonds were in danger of being paid, and
they determined to stop it. Then, more
than half of them were owned abroad,
and the British policy was applied to
| them, in our black act of 1878,
| In 1865, our whole public debt
| footed up $2.779 236l7S. In 1878 it was
$2,234 4S2 1888, reduction of 1888, 753, 180, be-
sides interest in seven years At that
rate the debt would be fully paid in
twenty-five years. In 1893 it was paid
| down to $685., 1868, 476, and would have been
| fully paid up today, but for the working
| Of the endless chain and the stoppage of
| silver coinage by the repeal of one sec
ton OF the Sherman act of 1890. This
state of affairs was exactly what the
| bondholderS feared in 1873, and are in
| worse dread of now.
| The banks became alarmed in 1898 be-
| cause the redemption of bonds was about
| to remove the foundation on which their
| charters are based. There were 37S7 ma
| tional banks in December, 1898. They
held in United States bonds $222294 $50;
| other banks and trust companies held
1923, 53S, SPIN all $345 S52722 The residue
| of the bonds, $685. 117254, was not greater
than six years production of our silver
mines, and is not greater than the produce
| ton of our gold and silver mines in the
past four years. 1t was evident in 1893
| that before the close Of the nineteenth
century every bond we owed would be
| paid, and the bank charters would lapse
| II they did not substitute gold and silver
| for the bonds. We would certainly pay
| the foundations from under them; the
bonds, on which they rested, would be
| paid, and they would be compelled to
| substitute other securities for their cir
culation.
In 1898 their net earnings were SOS, 1885,
| 632. In twenty-five years their net earn
ingS were 81 $3.50, 936, 361 ON an average cap
| ital of 1922, 797, 9f0-more than 260 per cent
profit. OF this capital the United States
was paying them interest on bonds held
by them to the amount of $222,294,350.
In 1898 the number of depositors was
1929, $40, and the amount of their deposits
was $1,647,O17129.
Under our banking laws the business
and the destiny of every national bank
in the United States is made to depend
greatly upon the will of the great banks
in New York and their clearing house
committee. They can rule them-and do
rule them-with the sceptre of almost I'M
limited CONTROL this control extends, with
equal compulsion, to all other banks and
loan and trust companies in our land and
far beyond our borders. To say nothing
of their power to expand or contract the
volume and description of our money cir
culation, and their consequent power to
enable their owners and favorites to
corner" the stock and bond markets and
the markets for food, raiment, shelter
and medicine for the people, they had in
their custody in 1893 the deposits of
S,143, SOS of our people, amounting to the
sum of $4,620, 431 ,230, that they were loan
| ing at heavy interest
| 1t is difficult ~ perceive how people
and a government could be more COM
pletely in the power of the banks than
we We're in 1893 or than we are now. For
ten years they had seen that the rapid
payment of the bonds of the United States
would soon compel them to turn loose the
government paps from which they were
sucking such rich and abundant nutri-
ment. In 1886 they drove Daniel Man
ming from Office as secretary Of the treas
ury because ne threatened to deny them
the control of our finances. During Har-
rison's administration they pressed the
government still more urgently, and he
managed to evade their demands by the
use of $200,000,0 900 of surplus left him by
Cleveland's first administration and $685.
100000 taken from the redemption fund
of the banks.
When Clevelands second term began
the national banks found the treasury
without gold. while the banks held $780,
,089 in gold coin and certificates. They
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