Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1900-09-20
IMPERIALISM AND MONEY.
che Single Gold Standard a Monarch
cal Institution-SmaIl Volume
of Money In Europe.

The question of republic or empire
is involved in our industrial condi-
tons, as well as in the more vital
Philippine-Porto Rico policy.
Take our currency system. The
monarchies of Europe are gold mono-
metallic countries, and lave a small
volume of money, less than $50 per
capita of the population. Five of
them have less than $40, while Rus
STA has less than seven dollars. Such
monetary conditions enable the few
to monopolize and III the money,
and will make industrial slaves and
serfs of any people, with the excep-
ton, perhaps, OF those of the tropics.
The bank law of March IA, 1900, is
more destructive of the now admitted
q~uantitative theory of money, and
embodies the monarchical theory that
all political power is not in the peo-
pie more clearly than any currency
law ever placed upon our statute
books. 1t takes away the constitution
al right of the free and unlimited
coinage of silver, thus lessening the
volume of redemption money. 1t
gradually retires the legal tender
greenback and treasury note money
of the people. 1t greatly enlarges the
volume of nonlegal tender circulating
notes-bank substitutes for money
based upon the public debt, which
must be retained and increased to
keep up the system. a permanent
debt is also a monarchical policy re-
pugnant to the theory of our repub-
lie.
By giving up the right to the free
coinage of silver and of making and
issuing greenbacks and treasury
notes, tae people have placed in the
hands of a few, hat supreme power
over those most vital matters, which
is lodged in theselves or through their
representatives under our theory of
government. They have allowed their
representatives to delegate these pow
ers, and have established the mon
archical theory in fact over our mon
etary system.
The theory of our banking system
is of monarchical invention, intended
to limit the supply of money by es-
t~ablishing a vast system of credit as
well as of debt.
IN PA1SNhb Sl1aiH uDOI Dduh (
its is sufficient to prevent any general
business development in the future,
without great danger of panic. The
comptroller of the currency in his re-
port of last June, estimates bank
deposits to be eight billion dollars.
The cash reserves held by the banks
to meet these deposits average onfy
about ten per cent. of this large sum, |
or one dollar of cash as against nine
dollars of bank credits.
How long can loans be made and
healthy business conditions prevail
with such a margin between cash re- |
serves and bank credits? Not long. |
1t was about one of cash to seven
of credit in 1893, when the banks,
acting in unison, found it to their
interest to break the strain and con-
tract credits, by calling in loans and
refusing accommodations, causing the
panic of that year, which ruined so
many depositors and caused universal
bankruptcy.
A disastrous panic would have &C.
Cured last December, after a season
of business improvement and activity
in stocks, had not heavy financial aid
been secured to prevent it. All of
which proves that. under this system,
any marked advance in business and
apparent prosperity, can be expect
ed only at the expense of a panic,
of later.
Not only does such a system give
an insufficient supply of money and
breed disastrous panics, but it causes
the money in actual use to be most
unaqually distributed. From a recent
table compiled from reliable data, it
appears that the per capita c~ircula-
ton of money in the state of New
York in 1899 was ss7. In Rhode Is
it was $26. In South Dakota, IS;
in Arkansas, So; in Mississippi. 50. So
it appears that where the money is
is the prosperity, elsewhere it