The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1898-06-30
Merchants of Money and Credits,

HASi SiidhIS Vi money ana (feQltS.
A number of gentlemen, engaged in
their business in the several cities and
towns of the state, have utilized this
season of outings, vacations and con-
ventions to assemble here and discuss
matters pertaining to their vocation,
to exchange views, and, incidentally, to
enjoy the pleasures of their annual
banquet. They are engaged, as so
many others are, in buying and selling.
aIthough the process is not known by
those terms. and the very fact that
their business has existed for several
hundred years., and has increased in
magnitude, indicates that it is one of
the indispensable vocations of civilized
life, and yet, although those thus en-
gagged are eminently respectable gen.
tiemen, of upright lives, law abiding.
ana as class honest beyond the linn
nations ordinarily set upon business
integrity, it is one of the queer facts
of our social life that no inconsiderable
portion of the community look upon
them askance, not as individuals. of
course. for the individual is generally
hlghly esteemed and trusted, and Is
almost always worthy of it, but as a.
class.
These gentlemen are known as bank
ers, and their business is simply the
buying and selling of money and cred
Its, just as another merchant buys and
sells groceries or clothing, or another
cattle and pigs, for money Is a. COM
modify as any of those things is. It
is not called buying and selling in their
trade, but calling it depositing, loaning.
d1scounting and SO on does not alter
the essential Sature of the act, Thew
buy the use of the surplus money of the
community, the savings of those who
have more than they can use, and then
pay them for it in what they call in
terest. 1t is just as much a public
convenience and utility to have a place
where this surplus can be gathered
and where those who want it can go.
as 1t is to have the merchant assemble.
the groceries, clothing, or other arti
cles needed in the economies of the
household, the shop or the farm. They
sell money or credits and get what they
call interest, and the difference be-
tween what they pay in interest and
what they get in interest is their mar
gin of profit, just as the difference be-
tween what the merchant pays and
what he calls for is his profit.
That is all there is to banking. and
thar is the business of a banker and
yet. although there is no community
where children are taught in schools
and men raise or make more than
they can use, that can get along with
out them, banks and bankers are the
ogre of the simple and uniformed. the
packhorses of envy and prejudice. and
especially the piece de resistance of
the demagogue. They are that fear
some creature of which we have
heard so much in recent years. al.
ways hear so much of in times of
financial Stress the money power"
Conventions of political parties some
times arraign them in their platform.
and men more amply endowed with
mouths than brains delight to haste
them from the hastings.
There is, indeed, money power
but the banker is more afraid of it
than any mouthing blatherskite ever
assumed to be or any of his s;nnIa
dupes ever really was. The banker
f.
fects of this money power to his sor
row and loss. He Is not deceived as
to who it is. He knows that it is the
men of whom he has bought the use
of money, and who in those spasms
we call panics, are seized with a pas
sion to get it back again. They are
those whom we call the depositors
and they can break every bank and
banker in a day if they wish. The
banker trembles before this money
power as the farmer does before the
locust. the footrot or the hog cholera.
No class of business men are more
deeply concerned in the prosperity of
the community than are these men.
for it is then that they buy and sell
most, and still there are men who saw
and more who believe, that these
financial panics are caused by these
men who always suffer most by them
Some day there will be saner thinking
with better information, wider knowI-
edge of the facts, and with it better
appreciation Of the value banking is
In our industrial life, but the dem
agogue will have lost a large quantity
of his capital.