The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1898-11-09
INFAMOUS MEASURES
THE OVERSTREET AND HILL-FOW
LER BILLS NOW BEFORE CON-
GRESS ARE INTENDED
TO DECEIVE
Honest Voters and Give the Money
Power Control of Prices of Pro-
ducts and Labor.
(The Non-COnfOrmist,)

(The Non-Conformist.)
The Overstreet and Hill-Fowler bills
are too intimately connected to be sep
arated. The last contains all the OBJ
jectionable features of the Overstreet
bill, with other provisions equally as
Objectionable.
Mr.. Overstreet and every other Re-
publican candidate for congress stands
for one as much as the other.
After the committee on banking and
currency reported the Hill-Fowler bill,
Mr.. Hanna, chairman of the executive
committee of the Indianapolis monetary
convention sent out a circular, urging
united support of it.
Mr.. McCleary, the leading member of
the majority that ordered the bill re-
ported, and who wrote the majority re-
port, was brought to indianapolis by
Mr.. Hanna, who sent out thousands of
personal letters urging voters to hear
him. In the speech he made here dur
ing the first week in October, he said
nothing not contained in his report. I
call attention to a few points in it:
The pretended purpose of the bill is
to strengthen the public credit and
"relief of the treasury
He said: THE bill is framed to ac-
complish these results without . >
the issue of bonds.''
The want of sincerity, if nothing
worse, is seen by reading section 4 of
the bill.
1t authorizes the secretary, for the ex-
press purpose of keeping up the re-
serve, to issue and sell interest bearing
gold obligations.
What difference is there in the situa-
ton that these obligations are called
certificates of Indebtedness" They
called, and of course due in one to five
years.
2. He said the treasury will be re-
lieved when the greenbacks cease 10 be
a burden for redemption in gold.
Leaving out all consideration of the
fact that the law does not require them
to be redeemed in gold, it cannot be
possible that this statement was made
in sincerity.
When the greenbacks are destroyed
they will not, of course, require redemp
ton in either gold or silver. What
disreputable humbug, however, is
uncovered when section II is read, and
it is found that greenbacks are to be
turned into reserve notes, and by laws
made payable in gold ultimately out
of the United States treasury! Then,
when it is found in section 6 that $780,
100000 silver dollars are to be given
the power to extract gold from the
of 346,000,000 dollars of grenbacks to
do it contrary to law, there will be over
S00,000,000 dollars of reserve notes and
silver to do it by authority of law, it
is difficult to resist the conclusion that
there is something worse than want Of
sincerity in the purpose of the bill, and
in the statement made by Mr.. Nc
Cleary (Minn.).
g. His report shows that under the
bill bank would be able to invest 10
per cent of it's capital in interest bear
ing bonds, and in addition have 40 per
cent in money to loan. With 100000
cash capital, a bank could deposit $40,-
600 in greenbacks and get $4,000 in
reserve notes. It could buy $4,000 in
bonds, and on this get 100000 in ma
tional bank notes. This would give
$4,000 in notes, and leave it $4,000 Of
the cash capital. 1t could then receive
10000 in national currency notes, with
out security, making the entire loanable
fund $4,000, exclusive of the bonds. In
other words, with 100000 capital,
bank will be able to draw interest on
$3.50, 900.
If this is not class legislation, l do
not know what is.
4. National currency notes are said
to be secured by bank assets.
Take the example above. The $4,000
of reserve notes and the 100000 of ma
tional bank notes, in case the bank
failed, would be paid in full. This
would leave $4,000 currency notes to be
paid out of the $780, 900 of capital left,
and stockholders liability. If the loss
in the failure covered this, then the
money of the depositors would be used
to pay the currency notes.
The depositors would not only have