The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1901-03-08
WARS AND BONDS.
Intimate Relation Between Wars and
the Ascendancy of PIutocracy.

the Ascendancy of PIutocracy.
Communicated.
Thomas H. Benton closed his celebrat-
ed speech against the old United States
Bank as follows:
at came to us of war-it will go away
with peace. 1t was born of the war of
I8I2-it will die ::in the long peace with
which the world is blessed. The argu-
ments on which it was created will no
longer apply. Times have changed; and
the policy of the Republic changes with
the times. The war made the bank,
peace will unmake it. The baleful planet
of fire, the blood, and every human woe,
did bring that pestilence upon us, the
benignant star of peace shall chase it
away"
The intimate connection between war
and banking oligarchies has been illus
trated four times in our short experience
as a nation. The first national bank, Gre
ated in 1891, as part of the funding
operations devised by Hamilton to enrich
spectators in the debts created by the
revolutionary war, may he called the post
humous child of that war. At the expira-
ton of its charter, in 1871, it died without
struggle, for Jefferson's influence was
then potent in the Republic and strug-
gle would have been useless.
But the war of 1872 came on and then
even Jefferson's great influence could not
prevent the money power from getting a
new charter, which it did in 1876. All
the evils foretold by Jefferson followed,
and at the expiration its charter in 1896,
the Democratic party, led by President
Jackson and his great Secretary of the
Treasury, Roger B. fancy, endorsed the
money trust. This was in time of peace,
as Benton mentions, and as soon as
another war occurred, the moneybags got
up out of the dust, where Jackson had left
them, as some fondly hoped, dead. got its
grip on the throat of tine nation, when its
life was already in danger, and secured
the establishment of the present national
banks. And just when, i'll consequence
OF the campaign of 1896, the people
began to see their danger from the pres
ent money power and were preparing to
overthrow it, another war came along to
divert the attention Of the people and
entice them to support the Republican
party under the patriotic impulse of stand,
ing by their country when at war with a
foreign foe; and thus, for the fourth time,
in but little over a century, has wal
enthroued plutocracy.
II is noticeable too, that, almost without
exception, the national banks and their
followers were and are in favor OF the wal
which Mckinley is waging upon the
Philippines, while the advocates of hard
money, of government money and moi
bank money, are, almost all, opposed to
the war. There is reason for this the
banks need government bonds in their
business of manufacturing money out Of
paper. and, as it is quite profitable bus
iness, they would like to enlarge it and
make more money out of paper; for this
purpose they need more government
bonds, and war furnishes the best excuse
for the issuance of more government
bonds. Two hundred millions of new
bonds have been issued by the govern
ment, on account of the Spanish war, to
the great relief Of the banks, and, if the
Philippine war can be kept up for while
longer the banks may reasonably expect
another issue.
And so we may see, if we look, some oil
the links Of a new endless chain, which
works something like this: War makes
bonds; bonds make banks; banks make
wars; wars make bonds: bonds make
banks; aud so on round and round.
And the only remedy for this evil OF
private banks and redeemable paper
mousy is government banks pure and
simple. The government could then issue
legal tender greenbacks aud destroy its
bonds in place BIAS at present issuing
national bank notes with its bonds as
endorser for the banks. And this is the
financial policy which the Democratic
party should adopt and boldly advocate
u Il hopes to succeed in the future
IouRSAL1