Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1896-07-07
A FAIR WARNING.
GEORGIA BANKERS TELL DEPosIToRs WHAT WILL BE THE INEVITABLE
 RESULT OF FREE COINAGE.

Bankers Want to Return to Depositors as
 Good Money as Was Received-Afay Be
 Prevented b7 the Awful Rush of Ruin
 Which Will Preceae a Free Coinage Law.
 The Georgia bankers have formally declared that an immense majority Of the financial men in Georgia believe that great calamities would befall the whole country if certain very extreme views about our primary money should prevail , This of course means free coinage by the United States.
 ''If these politicians succeed" say the bankers of Georgia, i've wish it understood that it was ill despite of our warning; that we to the last protested that we wished to pay our depositors in as good money as we got from them; that to the last we besought the disturb CTS of the peace of commerce to let con- fidence in money revive, and when our depositors rush upon US for their money in advance of the passage of such 6 law and in order so attempG to avoid loss before the law depreciates theie money, and when to meet their imperative and just demands we are forced to press col leetions and deny accommodations in that awful rush of ruin, let it be remem- bered that we begged to be spared the calamity to ourselves and to the coun- try"
 Commenting upon this declaration, The Journal of Commerce and Com mercial Bulletin of May 27 asks "Will the planters and the politicians Of Georgia persist in their demand for free coinage after this impressive protest and warning addressed to them by their own bankers? We fear they will, but the immense majority of the financial men of Georgia ought to be able to de- feat the politicians if they cannot deter them.
 ''This declaration, '' says the same paper .is evidence enough of what we have so often said, that the silver ques- tion is not sectional; the commercial classes of the west and south are gener- ally sound on it; the issue is one be- tween the commercial classes who know something of the operations of monetary legislation and the farmers of the non commercial states who do not know, and the politicians who do not even care so long as they can raise an excitement by means of which some of them can be elected to office.
 Continuing it says that most of the free silver talk is due to an inability to understand the facts underlying the question is illustrated by the protest of The Memphis Commercial Appeal, that the idea that the silver men would ex- pei gold from use as money Is entirely gratuitous, inasumch as such has never been their intention or desire The Commercial Appeal is quite unable to understand how gold would be expelled unless law were passed to that effect.
 It is immaterial what.the silver men intend or desire if they succeed ill set ting ill motion the forces that would in- evitably end the monetary use of gold in this country The paper has com plete set of financial opinions which it does not hesitate to insist on against the adverse judgment of all financial au- | thorities here and abroad, and yet it has so little acquaintance with either the 1 theory or the history of money that 1t 1 does not even understand what is meant 1 by the statement that free silver would drive gold out of monetary use. # course it never heard of Gresham s law ]" |