The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1903-10-22

ment, not legislation. We may need
currency legislation as we have needed
it for years. but it is not to meet this
situation, and there is no use to delude
ourselves with the hope that legislation
will help us out of trouble due to over
expansion and speculation. We need all
the reserve money we can get, but 1egis-
latiOn Will not produce it. We must walt
for the accumulation of gold, the only
real reserve money. 1t will be no real
help to make a further large Increase in
bank note circulation and no one would
think of adding to the volume Of the
greenbacks. No legislation can cnange
fixed capital to productive capital. That
is merely question of tire, and there
is nothing to do but to wait fos' II.
There is also tendency towards re-
elimination and placing the blame for
present business conditions on some one
else: for one section of the country TO
blame another; for the west to say it is
all the fault of the east and Wall street.
Some very foolish people say they are
glad to see the spectators lose because
they alone are to blame and the rest of
the people will not be hurt. There can
hardly be any more mistaken view than
this. There is no man, woman or child
in the civilized world so poor, so remote,
or obscure as not to be more or less af-
fected by the large movements in the
financial centres. Very recently / have
known personally of enterprises in the
mountains of North Carolina, in Cali
Philippines whose proposed operations
have been curtailed on account
of the uncertainty of the mon
ey market The result is that
the amount of money to be spent for
wages and supplies among people so
widely separated in different parts of
the world has been reduced and these
people who, if they have ever heard of
such matters, regard themselves as far
beyond their reach and influence, have
been directly affected in the amount of
| their wages and incomes and the prices
of their products. These are only exam
pies of thousands of similar cases and
no one can say he is not concerned. The
qualifications of business in all parts of
| the world are so intricate and far-reach-
| ing that what affects the money market
| in any large way reaches us all. 1t is
true that there has been over-specula-
ton, much of it wild and foolish; some
of it fraudulent and dishonest. It does
no good, however. to scold and blame
the speculator. He always follows and
participates in such a movement and
I always will until human nature changes.
| The purely gambling speculation on
margins is only the fringe of the great
| trading and dealing in stocks and se-
curities in Wall street, which is a nee
essary part of modern business. Do not
misunderstood me as defending or even
| excusing this speculation. There is en-
| tirely too much of it and too many BUSH
ness and professional men, bankers and
bank officers, have been tempted and
acquired the habit of speculation dur
| ing the last few years of rapidly adj
vancing prices. 1t should be stopped if
there is any way to do it. and you, as
| bankers, can do as much to discourage,
| if not prevent it, as any one can. This
sort of speculation, however is not by
| any means a chief or leading factor in
the situation. The whole movement since
! the revival in business came has been
more or less speculati tive, and just as
business has been unduly depressed and
| prices lower than they should have been,
we have gone to the other extreme.
| Wall street and the spectators are per-
haps not so very much more to blame
| than the rest of the country. Where is
the man or the bank entirely free from
| sin to cast the first Stone2 You may
| not speculate on the stock exchange, OF
underwrite promotions. but it will be
hard to find the bank whose officers or
| chief customers are not in some local
promotion or combination which is more
| or less speculative Properly enough, too,
in many cases perhaps, for it is often
one of the best services a bank can
render its own community to encourages
local enterprises which are legitimate
! and which are to be in honest and COM
petent hands. The strongest claim
| which is made for our system of locally
owned independent banks is that they
develop local institutions and are able
| to lend their credit to worthy local en-
terprises and deserving men where per-