The times., 1897-04-14
The Educational Campaign Opened.

stand, on the authority or influential Jour
nails subsidized in the sound money
interest, that a large portion of the two
publican national committees sixteen
miIlion-,lollar Presidential campaign fund,
was TO be used in furnishing forth "a new
gold literary propaganda; with the hope
that, thereby, the American people might
be redeemed from their bimetallic tenden'
cies, and taught to accept the disinterested
OF the money lenders and stock gamblers
| of London and New York.
We have waited patiently for the firing
of the first gun III The resurrected campaign
| OF education thus promised, and think we
recognize it by the smell of the powder
burned, in a siIrewd and labored paper,
published In the New York Herald by Mr..
Maurice L, Muhleman, Deputy Assistant
| United States Treasurer at New York city.
| A the Herald introduces the essay with the
remark that it is "a terse and luminous
article" We may be sure thatit represents
| the European and Wall street financial
| position on the subject which 1T treats.
| Boiled down to its essential proposition.
| Mr.. Muhleman's paper offers the dictum
| that scarcity of money; that is, re-
use by the people of the United States, has
nothing to do with their past or present
financial distress. What they need is
an enlargement OF banking facilities he
analyses the votes by States for Mckinley
and Bryan, finds that the banking power"
that is the capital invested and deposits
in hankS-was vastly greater on the aver
agein Republican than in Democratic States
and deduces from this the argument, that
opposition TO the gold standard arose
from the lack of available banking capital
and banks, in the discontented communi-
ties, rather than the want of basic money.
The argument is speciously and elab-
orately worked out. ItinvOlves the postu-
late that distress and incidental discomfort
viii be found to exist in the ratio OF
banking power to the per capita OF
the several political divisions Of the
country. In trying 10 prove this. the
essayist presents a tabulatcd statement.
according TO which, among other things.
he shows that the banking power Of
national, State and private banks in thir-
teen Western States is S34 80 per capita,
while in thirteen Southern States it is
only S17.92 per capita. Therefore, to
make the argument good, we ought to
find nearly 100 per cent more distress
in the Southern than in the same
number of Western States.
AS a matter of fact, the truth lies at
the opposite pole. Everybody knows that
been less real distress and priyation in
the South than in any other American
agricultural community. This condition
has obtained TO some extent because gen.
eral credit facilities which Mr.. Muhle-
man declares are needed, land not money"
were not extended to the South to any
great extent, from the reconstruction era
to the present time What credit facilities
have existed in that section have been
so onerous and prohibtive in operation
that the people have been forced to con-
tent themselves with a modest scale
of living, and to make many personal
sacrifices to escape from debt. They gen
orally were out OF debt when repeal of
the purchasing clause of the Sherman act
precipitated the panic OF 1898, and,
OF the intervening disastrous years better
than their brethren OF the thirteen Western
States, who previously had enjoyed much
better ''credit facilities and had sunk
themselves in the attractive but fatal
gulf Of Eastern farm mortgages. So much |
for the contention that the per capita !
present necessary relation to the extent |
within it OF financial distress or dfscon- |
tenti |
We need not discuss the thesis further |
than to state that it offers more banks, |
and the power TO multiply them by allow |
ing the organization of smaller national |
banks in places Of minor population, and |
the privilege of subdividing the operation
of more important institutions, through
the creation offocal branches, as specific |
for all the monetary Ills now suffered by |
the people.
This, as we take it, is the keynote of
the new Republican campaign of educa-
ton We must have more banks and, as
a foundation for them, we must have more
bonds. To get more bonds we must have
a national revenue deficit which will com
pei their issue. To secure the necessity for
new issues we must have fiscal policy
which Will destroy revenue. The DingIey