Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-12-12
.SCH|FF HAS REMEDY
Suggests Change in Handling OF
Government Funds.
TREASURY WITHDRAWALS
Overnight Announcements Of Relief
>. :. :. Bad Finance.
TOO MUCH ONE-MAN POWER
Banker Declares United States Cannot
Give International Leadership I'm
der Present Money System.
TREASURY WITHDRAWALS
TOO MUCH oNE-MAN POWER

CHICAGO, December lin the course
of speech delivered last night before the
Illinois Manufacturers Association Jacob
H. Schff of New York. among other things,
said:
Under the law the revenues of the gov
eminent have either to be covered into
the treasury or they may be deposited
in part with the national banks at the in
stance of the Secretary of the Treasury.
This immense discretionary power has been
exercised by successive secretaries with
varying prudence and ability, and should
add, in the forty years of my own business
experience, no Secretary of the Treasury
has shown, in this respect, more common
sense and foresight than the present occu-
pant of this high Office, but it cannot be
expected that the judgment of a single
mind can be infallible and placing, as is
the case, into the hands of one man the
power to be the arbiter of the material
welfare of the entire country, this, with the
best intentions, through the least error Of
judgment on the part of the Secretary Of
the Treasury may become jeopardized to a
degree, the extent of which we shall never
be in a position to ascertain
Nothing is so greatly to be depre cated
than the overcoming withdrawal of
large part of the country's capital from its
useful purposes into the United States
treasury and the so-called assistance to
Treasury which this necessitates. The
overnight announcements of relief the
Secretary Of the Treasury is in the habit
of making are neither good finance nor
fruitful of good results to the material
interests of the country; but these sudden
announcements from Washington, to which
We have become accustomed, are only the
consequence of most undesirable, almost
barbarouS, methods which existing laws
have called forth.
The Sole Remedy.
The sole but imperative remedy for this
is the enactment of legislation, providing
that the revenues of the government which
after all are nothing but part of the work.
ing capital of the country, shall, as fast
as they are collected, be deposited with the
national banks in proper proportion to
their capital upon such actual security as
may be acceptable to the Secretary of the
Treasury and upon the payment of uni
form rate of interest, likewise to be de-
termined by the Secretary. If this be done
what it has to deal with, without having
to look constantly Washingtonward to de-
pend upon a single man and mind for the
regulation of the money supply.
with sound elastic circulating medium,
and the situation otherwise left to natural
conditions, trade and commerce will find
itself protected against many of the finan-
cial difficulties under which we suffer at
all times to lesser or greater degree, not
less in the periodical superabundance of
money than in times of severe scarcity or
in the panics which come upon us at
greater but certain Intervals. Not until
these conditions become remedied will the
United States become financially and COM
| mercially independent and supreme, a po-
sittOn which our natural resources as well
as the energy and ability of our people
should long ago have assured u.s. Who
can compound the actual losses and moral
setbacks we have suffered since the close
of the civil war, because Of our clumsy and
deficient financial methods. Had we then
set our house resolutey and properly in Or
der, instead of continuing and inventing all
sorts of makeshifts, which at best act but
as painatives, who knows how much suf-
fering we might have been saved in these
four decades.
Unable to Lead.
I'VE have during this period had not
alone two financial panics of the first mag
nitude, with some ten years of enervating
of 1875 and 1893, but have, moreover, been
unable, as nation, to gain the international
financial leadership, which has been several
times within our grasp. / can only repeat,
1t is by no means the banker who suffers
under the prevailing conditions but rather
the manufacturer, the farmer and the mer-
chant. You know not today what in a
base the initial arrangements for your bust
ness affairs upon ordinary financial con-
dftions and before you get through you are
compelled to pay eXorbitant rates for the
accommodation you require, If you can OBJ
tain it at all. Instead of possessing cir
culating medium which can adapt itself to
the business of the country, the business
of the country has, as it is, to adapt itself
to clumsy currency, and the consequences
are naught but loss, setbacks, if not panic