Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1900-06-06
GOVERNMENT BANKS.
Without Them There Can BE No Practical
or Beneficial Solution of the
Money Question.

Money Question.
The weak point, or omission in the
Sioux Falls platform, is the demand
for postal savings banks instead of
government banks to keep the money
it issues out of the control of money
SPECTATORS. The national banks do
not care very great deal for the priv
ilege of issuing currency. Very few
of them issue the amount the law in
its old form permitted, and they will
probably not issue much more under
the new form.
What the bankers-the head men of
the bank monopoly, or trust-desire
is to enjoy the credit of the govern
ment to bank on, and deprive the gov
ernment of all power to issue any
money except the amount of gold
they deliver to the mints and order
coined on their account.
The banks want the privilege of
loaning credit, with the apparent in
dorsement of the government. The
less money in circulation the lower
prices will be and the more property
the public will purchase. They de-
sire to loan credit to finance all busi-
ness operations of any magnitude and
by that system hold debt over every
business organization or business man
in the country, with sufficient money
in circulation only to cash checks that
are issued against their credit loans.
The banks now have power, under
their currency law which they call
the gold standard, to issue as much or
as little circulation as they desire
The gold coin will not circulate and
this they hold and call reserve. When
they have succeeded in taking the
greenbacks out of circulation, silver
certificates and their own notes will
constitute the circulating medium.
the quantity of which the banks will
be able to completely control.
If the right to issue circulation is
cut off as the platform above demands,
and the government restored to it's
constitutional right to issue legal ten
der paper money and the free coinage
of silver, and stops right there, it
would leave the banks in full control
of the money of the country to ma
nipulate and speculate with it as they
do now. They would have no further
use for bonds or for a government
charter, but could go on under state
charters as usual, with loaning wind
or credit and receiving the peoples S
money on deposit as at present
What we need instead of postal saw
11 = IL. L
system of government banks for the
deposit and safe keeping of every
body's money, not merely for the de
posit of pennies and nickels of the
poorest class, with full banking priv
ileges to discount and loan. A system
o. government banks would soon re-
ceive all deposits. No one would de-
posit in private corporations bank,
which all national banks are, when
the security of government banl,
was offered. One-half of the interest
which is paid by the business COM
munity into the present private banks
would defray the entire expense of
government, with no tax from other
sources needed, and leave enough to
build systems of railroads, telephones
and telegraphs throughout the entire
country if the people demanded them,
and at a lower rate of interest than
is exacted by our present banks.
If such system were established
we would hear no more opposition to
the free coinage of silver or gold
standard advocated IS the salvation
of the country and the palladium of
our liberties" The bankers occupa-
ton, like Othello's, would be gone and
his mission from Wall street to the
treasury to save the country's credit,
would cease. People who corner
money and hold it out of use for the
purpose of loaning 1t to others more
Industrious and enterprising than
themselves, would put it into bus
mess and follow it up in order to
create more wealth by an honest
business of their own.
Give the people system of gov
ernment banks and an Independent
American financial system, in place of
the small fry postal savings banks,
| and dispense with elk hat fraternity
which is rapidly growing unto Sc
lect plutocratic class in this country
| assuming to be vested with supreme
power little short of the exploited
''divine right of kings. Midland
Journal.