Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1899-11-06

and to be counted as part of the week.
ly bank reserves. Ever since the re-
peal of the Sherman law this boarding
of gold and issue of clearinghouse GER
tificates has steadily gone on, and only
the banks themselves know the amount
of gold that has been boarded and
taken out of circulation. And the
rigidly righteous comptroller of the
currency winked at this wholly illegal
practice, while he notoriously
would make precipitate haste to pre-
vent the people, instead of the banks,
from employing a similar currency to
ward off their ruin. The subterfuges.
Misrepresentation, misleading state
ments, and actual falsehoods invented
and uttered by the associated money
power and its obedient and subsidized
press to make the public believe the
situation was due to natural rather
than to wholly unnatural and inde-
fensible causes, form very substan-
tial part of the history Of this ill
starred financial panic, confessedly
more purely unnecessary and iniqui-
tous than all similar distressful events
since the country had national be-
ginning. The banks turned and braz-
emily accused the people of boarding the
money and thus making it scarce
Then they charged that the country
banks kept it back, and refused in the
timidity of ignorance to let it out into
the customary channels of circulation
and use. 1t is a well-authenticated
statement that when the panic had
reached its zenith there was $35,000,-
900 more money in New York banks
than at the corresponding period of the
year previousl The bank reserves
steadily increased beyond all previous
record. Well may it be asked, il
money is something for facilitating the
business of the great body of people,
or If it is merely an instrument Of
oppression and distress, to be put into
the hands of a favored power for its
enrichment and enlargement at the
cost Of the helpless sufferers. Hereto
fore, when the money market became
severely stringent, both the banks and
the government came to its speedy re-
lief; in the present instance alone has
that relief, never so urgently demanded
as now, been coldly refused, while the
people themselves are charged with
being the author of their own calami-
ties by their ignorantly willful hoard
ing of money! 1t is nowise difficult to
understand where the present financial
troubles originated, the motive that in
spired them, and the faulty of expect
ing any real release from them until
the conditions which made them posi-
BILE are wholly and thoroughly re-
moved. One thing is rendered prac-
tically certain by the direful expert
ence the people are needlessly passing
through: That diminishing money
volume cannet be made to answer the
increasing needs of our modern indus
trial and business life, and that our
growing civilization demands medium
of exchange adequate to the required
stimulation of the universal productive
power, rather than that of the wealth
absorbing power of limited class
whose interests center almost entirely
in themselves. When, as the national
census tells us, $1,000 individuals own
one-half Of the country's wealth, it is
time to turn the subject over and con-
slider 1t from it's other side. And that
is just what the people are seriously
engaged in doing now, for which they
are derided and denounced by
suborned and servile press, with hin
dering the general prosperity
GEORGE CANNING HILL.