The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-09-26
HAS A SOLID FOUNDATION Address by United States
 Treasurer Roberts. GOLD IS INCREASING The Amount is the Largest
 Ever Received. The old Country Financial Insti-
 tutions Must Taks . Back
 Seat e to the Yellow Metal.

is attending joint convention of the Maryland and the District of Columbia Bankers Association, which is holding on bard steamboat on the Potomac river, tonight delivered the following address:
 Current financial discussion deals, in much the larger part, with national bank notes. They constitute less than one sixth of our stock of money, $4ls, ,5s7, ,s75 out of $2.7oS 69s. .66s. and no legislation can change that ratio very materially. Gold, on the other hand, furnishes $.267, 733, ,949. or hard on to one-half of our stock. and tt grew nearly twelve million dollars last month.
 Let me be content to stand on the rock bottom of gold. Of $2,3Ss, ,902, 17S money in circulation, gold in coin and certificates Is $1.014.530, ,07S; bank notes are just less than siO0.00o,0o0. And, again. look at the treasury holdings. The gold there is today the largest sum ever re- corded, s653. .000,000. Our treasury holds three and nine-tenths times the amount of gold belonging to the Bank of Eng land. which is $166, ,s56 600: it Is more than three and eight-tenths times that of the Imperial German Bank, which Is s17o. .s71,- 600 or very nearly three times that of the Austro-Ifungarian bank. which Is $221,- 404000; it lacks only ss,00o,00o of being equal to that of both banks of England and of France, which latter holds sts4.- 506.000 and 1t exceeds the amount of Rus. sta. Germany, Belgium and the Nether- lands combined.
 '.rhis is not the whole case. These foreign treasuries are practically the sole basis of the finances of the respective na- tions. On the holdings of the Bank of England rests the credit. public and pri- vate, of the British Empire. With us, besides the gold in the national treasury, the banks, national and other, own $322,- AS,sH and this is more than any central institution holds, save those of France and Russia.
 ssfore vital yet Is the growth of the of- acial kfs2sury of the several cQunfries. n s127, ,ss0, GOO, ana Austro-Hnngary Se e120. 600. In the same period the Imperial German Bank has lost $3S. .6S3, 600. the Bank of England $2.265 900 and Russia. $f82. .240, 900. Good fortune has added to the gold in the treasury vaults of the United States from the close of August 1898. to the first day of the current month. $S93, ,9S0. .295. or very nearly sso.00O00o year on the average.
 Let us get little closer to the bank vaults and to the pockets of the people. The gold, coin and certificates in circu- latior September l, 1898, was $e6s 166, ,1e5, which was N per cent of the total. By the first of the present month this factor had become $1.0145s1 .O7s and l2.0 of the whole. Here in the gold currency of the land is a gain of s34Ss64,910, within five years. This is the strength of our cir cuIating medium, and the crown as well as the cornerstone of our financial sys- tenn.
 Certain tinnid souls look upon our real money as a Samson whose locks at some time may be shorn by a Philistine Deli lo nA ffc rlfnOnd aWaV. Now this Delilah takes the form of a rush to the treasury of the United States. Again she appears in the garb of Secretary of the Treasury using silver for official pay ments. and finally, she becomes Congress indulging in wild legislation. If mathe- matics is good for anything. 1t proves that greenbacks cannot be procured in volume enough to be more than spray beating on Gibraltar. Every Secretary will find that silver is less within his con- trol for actual iise than gold. He cannot make silver current for large payments. As for Congress, it's power is vast; but with an inflow of $SO,0oO0 900 year of gold into the treasury, no act or legislation can stop the majestic force.
 ''But-and there is but--credit is based upon our gold and 1t is possible to infiate and exploit 1t to a dangerous degree. Recent chronicles are not without illus trations. This process of attenuation and its rapidity and extent. present the real problem of the situation. Wisdom cries aloud and will be heard sooner or later, and better soon than late, that 1t is not safe to pile credit so mountain high that flying machines will be needed to operate in it's thin atmosphere. In the mean while, and I believe for the long time, the nations prosperity rests on stead fast foundation"