The age-herald., 1901-04-21

in the last days of the existence of the Alabama private banks of issue. The late John T. Milner said in public speech that every dollar of the stock was owned in Alabama. The State now contains about 45o0 miles of Wall street railroad, and none belonging to Alabama, or prac- ticaliy none. The Wall street roads have commerce. have in late years seen cot ton bales brought down the rivers to Mobile to go by rail to the east.
 Demagogues and satellites of trusts have always in stock certain epithets, such as wild cat, etc, ready for appli- cation to the private banks of issue that have been eliminated, for purpose, from our monetary system. We are not about to have those beneficences of a past time restored. However, if Alabama had re- solved, thirty-five years ago. to pay an- nually, out of her state treasury, the 10 per cent federal tax upon the currency of the Bank of Alabama" and its associ- ate banks, 1t is quite likely that our state bonds would all be owned in Alabama, and the interest paid in Alabama, that our state tax rate would not exceed three mills. that the securities founded upon our mines and manufactories would be owned by Alabamians at home, that our plantations would retain their owners In residence rather than post them OH to towns to live. Wall street sent some one or two millions of dollars down to the black belt twenty years ago to in- vest in plantation mortgages, at about l6 per cent interest and commissions Wall street supplies, directly or indirectly, the money for which cotton producers pay from % to 75 per cent interest, to make crops.
 The year after the charter of the Bank of Alabama was granted, that is, In Jan ttaiti convention g. sembled at Montgomery known as the se- cession' convention. A new constitution was adopted containing a clause on s.banlxing.'' This clause was a proviso to secure the safety of the currency or pri- vate banks of issue. It provided, among other things, that no bank of issue should be chartered in future with less capital stock, paid up, than $100,O00; that the bank chartered should have and keep In it's vaults 50 per cent of its capital stock in gold and silver; that each holder of the stock of the bank should be liable for the debts of the bank to the full amount of his stock, etc.
 The Legislature which chartered the Bank of Alabama at the session of 1s69-60 also chartered thirty-one new academies, sixteen new insurance companies in vari- ous parts of the States, thirty-two rail- roads, new or amended, also turnpikes, coal mining companies and manufactur-
 
 ing companies. The social life Of sne State was resplendent with achievement and happy in anticipation.
 The historian Alison asserts with elapo- rate particularly that the empire of the Caesars fell because of the exhaustion or the gold and silver mines of that age. The destruction of the currency of Ala bama destroyed general industrial enter prise in the State in producing cotton; cotton planters needed Mobile as none tary center: cotton production on Ala bama currency would have supplied the means to build all the railroads required for the mineral region the interest, com missions and profits of the roads so built would have remained in the State; the mines and manufactures that feed the roads would have been owned in Ala bama.
 The abolition of slavery simply antici- pated a fixed result. near at hand, from the progress and prosperity of the State. The confiscation of Alabama currency has a deep, wide and exhaustive and contin- ued effect upon the rights of a free peo- ple, impossible to describe in type, but foretold by MT. Lincoln himself.