The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1900-02-07

faction. class or party, whose interests are
apart from the common interests Of the
American people The occupation OF dema-
gogues to-day is to divide the American
people and to set brothers laboring in one
calling against brothers laboring In an
other. OF all of these the banks and
bankers are the favorite objects of perpet-
ual attack
1.-The reason of this is that the banking
interests of the Nation are the natural
objects of the peoples suspicion, because
the banks are the holders of the peoples
accumulated wealth and each depositor,
forgetting his Individual deposit. looks at
the vast aggregation of deposits and thinks
of that massed and mighty bulk of wealth
as the property of the banks themselves.
And so the ear Is credulous to the charge
of the Jack Cades of politics, that the
banks are unnaturally rich; that this
enormous wealth is dishonest wealth. won
by mysterious and wizard hands, won by
grinding down the people. won by squeez-
ing the juices out of prosperous times until
only the husk of hard times is left for the
masses. The cry of political catalines to-
day and always is, that the prosperity
of the banker means the poverty of the
producer; and on every incendiary stump
and in every sheet of hatred i'm the land
1t is proclaimed that the bankers of
America are the natural enemies of the
laboring. the producing and the business
elements of the Nation.
All patriotic men should denounce that
SANDER, for there is no business so ut
terly dependent on the welfare of their
fellow-men as the business of the bankers
of the United States. Banks have but two
sources of proft-interest and exchange.
Wnen times are good money is in de-
mand, rates are high, exchange is brisk
and banks prosper precisely as the coun-
try prospers. When times are bad ex-
change diminishes, loans are called in
and all the sources of income dry up like
the whitening roots of growing corn in
a summers drought. When do banks
the farmer gets highest prices for his
wheat; exactly when the manufacturer
sells most wares; exactly when the man
who tolls with his hardened hands is re-
warded with highest wages. When do
bank dividends decrease and finally fail?
Exactly when the merchant dare not buy
because he cannot sell. when factory
wheels are motionless and factory fires
are ashes. when the farmer burns
his corn for fuel, when the miner
when hunger sits at the table of toll
MERELY VITAL FACTS.
These are simply statistics; these are
merely vital facts. Explain them as you
will. and the explanation is as clear as
cause and effect. The explanation is
cause and effect For the bank is only
the agent of the mighty elements of pro-
duction and exchange. 1t is absolutely
dependent, and it is unthinkable
that the banks should destroy pros
perity that the hand should pluck
out the heart that supplies 1t with blood,
or deny the system the food by which
alone the hand itself even live. If
1t were true that bankers. by any manipu-
lation or device, Intentionally produced
the general disaster with which they are
charged there should not be one single
man of them outside a penitentiary to-
day-for the suffering of children, and
the hunger of women, and the helpless
grief of willing men is an awful thing.
and he who brings 1t on for gain is a
criminal fit for perpetual stripes. But
IL banks do not create disaster, then
those who knowingly charge them false
ly and thus sow hatred and dissensicn
among American citizens are infamous be-
yond epithet.
1.-THE banks are not the creators Of
wealth. the government is not the crea-
tor of wealth. The people, the SOIL the
air, the mines, the looms-these are the
creators of wealth. The banks do not
even own the wealth they hold. They do
not own themselves. The stockholders own
them partly but the depositors own them
under the accommodating decisions more
largely even than the stockholders. So the
demagogues' statement that the banks own
the country is merely a statement that the
country owns itself. The farmer, laborer,
merchant, manufactures and business man
lie, for the country owns the banks.
They put their money in banks be-
cause it is safer there, because 1t Is con-
venient and for the multitude or reasons
which together make UP what men call
common sense If left there long those
deposits usually draw interest Those de-
posits must be loaned out again to pay
that interest, to pay dividends, TO pay ex-
penses OF these and all the operations
of the banks the banker is only the SER
want, the agent the supervisor-the real
banker is the depositor and stockholder
the real banker is the American peo-
to bookkeeper, is nothing more than
the telephone girls at the exchanges
throughout the country, with the central
exchange here in New York; the banking
methods and devices are nothing more tnan
the wires and transmitters and receivers;
the depositors are the subscribers TO the
system to serve whom it is the business OF
the whole machinery of financial exchange.
The banks may be the transmitters, re-
ceivers and all that, the officers OF banks
may operate the exchanges but those who
do the talking are the prosperous and pro-
ducing American people
BANKERS MERELY AGENTS.
eff, then, the banker is merely the serv-
ant of business, If he is merely an agent
of the American people, 1t is impossible
that he should want to injure the people
or their business, because that would in
iure himself If the bank prospers only
when the country prospers, it follows II
is the bankers chief interest to guard the
country's prosperity. And since the labor
ingman can get best employment only
when the country prospers, 1T is also the
laboringman's chief interest to guard the
colintry's prosperity. And so the laborer
and the banker stand side by side, with the
same interests, the same purposes, and the
same results following their actiops; for
If either does anything that destroys
the prosperity of the other or the
prosperity of the country, he thereby de-
stroys his own prosperity. And the well
fare of the workingman means the prece-
dent prosperity of the manufacturer who
employs him. And the prosperity OF the
manufacturer depends upon the prosperity
of the farmer, who buys everything he
makes. And the prosperity of the railroad
is possible only when rapid and general
exchange of products of farm, factory and
mine occurs
And so the real prosperity of every in
dustry and every calling rests on the pros
perity of every other industry and calling
i'm the Nation. When We injure one we in
jure all. When one injuries the rest 1t In
lures itself For we are all woven togeth-
err in this wonderful civilization, with al
the forces of organized life, except when
thrown out of gear, working with infinite
HARMONY like the oiled and polished parts
Of a perfect machine, and producing as
their Joint result that finished produc,
called modern life. Yes, we are woven to-
gether by the processes Of human progress
into a civilization whose purpose and
the greatest number. And so 1 plead fol
American fraternity i plead for American