The Penn's Grove record., 1896-09-25

fAbl avs AlNll d Hl'rt%l" . , A.
An old adage is that history doth
but repeat ITSELF that W. are here TO
repeat, over and over again, the very
things that our fathers said and did
generations and generations ago. Yes
and these are the very things that our
children and our children's children
will continue to repeat long after we
are dead and gone. That great man,
Abraham Lincoln. had a foyorite poem
which be repeated very often. which,
in part, ran like this:
For We are the same that our fathers have been
We see the same sights our fathers have seen;
We drink the same stream, We view the same
SUI,
We run the same course our fathers have run.
The thoughts we are thinking our fathers would
think,
From the death We are shrinking our fathers
would shrink:
30 the multitude comes Ike the flower and weed
That Nithers and dies TO let others succeed.
So The multitude goes, even those we behold,
10 repeat every tale that has often been told"
History on the money question is sim
ply repeating itself, just as l myself
heard and remember it sixty years ago,
when Andrew jackson was President
Of The United States. l am an old man
and remember well the great battle
that was fought between the mass of
the American people, led by General
jackson OIL the one side and the great
money power, led by Nicholas Biddle,
the great money king of that day, on
the other side.
Sixty years age We had but ons. great
corporation il the United S~tatas-tha;
was The old United States Bank, with q
capital Of thirty-hve millions Of dollars
and a charter that expired Ii twenty
years. The great money power of that
generation was concentrated in that
bank and its branch banks in all the
States Of the Union. Thirty-fye mil.
lions do not seem very big when CON-
pared with the corporations we have
now, but the old l.. S. Bank had one
vast advantage over all other corpora
lions. We had no United States treas
uIy then, separate and apart from that
bank; and the law then required that
all the money belonging to the govern
ment should be deposited in that bank.
This gave its managers millions Of
money and vast power, for money was
worth from l to . per cent a month and
no restraint on the amount they could
issue, except their good faith. Banks
then printed their own paper money,
and the law permitted them to circu-
late s. in paper money for 81 of capital,
with no restraint but their good faith
to prevent them from circulating $100
to 81 OF their capital, which was often
done. Nicholas Biddle was president
of the great bank. He was the money
king of that day and generation. He
was not only banker, he was a scholar,
ar author, an orator and a Democrat,
and had supported Jackson at his first
election. He lived in a marble palace
oil the banks of the Delaware, fifteen
miles above Philadelphia, and there in
that palace of pure white marble, with
great coTinthian columns, this money
king dispensed a hospitality equal al.
most to any king in Europe. Thou
sands Of people thought him a vastly
greater man than General Jackson.
1 was a boy then, fourteen or fifteen
years old, working in a printing office,
and l remember all the papers announ.
ced n day that Nicholas Biddle would
pass through our village. We had no
railroads then. People travelled in the
old stage coach or in the canal packet
four OF five miles an hour. You will
hardly believe me when l say that PEG.
pie came fifty, sixty, eighty and 100
miles-came on foot, on horseback, in
wagons, any way and every way. Came
for whatr Why, to see the great mon.
ey king, Nicholas Biddle, as he stood
on the deck OF the boat going up north
to take command of his party in the
fight against Jacksonl These good PEG.
pie wanted to tell their children that
they had seen the great money king,
Nicholas Biddle, ''the man that crush.
ed General Jacksonl' OF course Jack
son was not yet crushed, but they were
SO sure he would be that to them it was
just the same thing. Well, some time
before Biddle's charter expired lie took
a trip to Washington to have a talk
with his then friend Jackson about a
new charter for his bank. The old one
would expire in 1886, and as jackson
was a candidate for reelection lie
thought it would be a good thing to tell
him about the vast power and influence
of his bank and Its many branches. He
told Jackson that the merchants and
men of affairs through all the States
were, as a rule, largely indebted to his
banks, and that through the influence
of his branch banks he could control
the election of any State in the Union,
Then sup rosen Andrew Jackson and
with suppressed emotion said: "Mr.
Biddle, if that is true, and l think il Is,
1 tell you here and now that if you can
control the election Of any State in the