The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-10-22
SOME HIGH FINANCES
DEMONSTRATE NEED or A BETTER
 SYSTEM AND CLOSER INSPECTION.
False Charge of Business Depression if Taft Is Defeated--Clear Cases of At
 tempted Intimidation.
By willls ,. Abbott. Manager of PublIci,,

chicago)
 The news dispatches carried to the vot- CTS ef the country the other day the report of an investigation into the affairs of cer- tain banks in New York that indicated with some picturesqueness the need of such a system of the Insurance of bank deposits as has been suggested by Mfr. Bryan and Is incorporated Into the Democratic platform. Charles ". Morse. a well known specuiat- CT and piunger in industrial co nh'nations. found he needed some banks to furnish him
 with funds for specuation. MT Morse is facing bankruptcy. saved from 1t only by the fact that his creditors refralned from pressing their claims lest they lose all. Some of his banks-went to the wall. In the course of the investigation into hls management of the National Bank of North America it was shown that an office
 boy ls years old had discounted notes at the bank amounting to $31o.0QQ. On the
 stand the boy declared he had never seen any of the money and that 1t would be ut
 teriy impossible for him to pay note of
 even si.oo0. The money went to Morse, who controlled the bank.
 Now. we are assured by the great bank CTS. of whom Morse obviously was one of | the greatest that a system by which the money of the depositors should be insured against the predatory methods of the bank | CTS themselves. would reduce that noble sense of responsibility so admirably mani
 
 Strict regulation is what they want, but the National Bank of North America was strictly regulated, examined at due inter-
 vals by the official examiners appointed by the United. States government and yet cheerfully lent an office boy $3lo.ooo on coi-
 lateral which shortly thereafter proved to be almost worthless.
 We Democrats will stand on our demand for a system which will protect the money carefully hoarded up by thrifty people and deposited in the banks-a system which will take out of its hiding places .n safe ty deposit boxes money which should flow into the channels of trade and swell the volume of business.
 prominent business man in the north west. the president of the water and light company in a town in that section, told story at the Annex the other day which H. illustrates the methods being employed in the last weeks of this campaign, particu- scare and thus force the defeat of the Democratic ticket.
 He was desirous. to place a considerable block of bonds. September 14, he received telegram from Chicago bankers saying, We are ready-to close deal, come at once" He came and last week the bankers noti- fled him they would not even discuss the matter because they seared Bryan would be elected
 His comment. on this seems to me con- vineing He said: '.My proposition involves a municipal monopoly, that of water and light It has no closer relation to the cleo ton of either Bryan or Taft than the ques- ton of the chieftainship of some tribe in the FIJI Islands Yet to create the impress sion in my mind that Bryan must be de- feated at any cost.fI meet this absurd prop- ositton. That seems to me to indicate the Taft managers are playing a desperate game in the face of the fact they know they are beaten"
 I have the gentleman's name in my pos- session. but as he is still desirous of com pleting his financial operations do not give 1t lest 1t embarrass him.
 If the bankers are playing politics as they certainly are so. too. certain types of big business concerns. have already ad- verted to the repeated instances of coercion which have been reported to the Democratic National committee.
 And, parenthetically, regret to see that Judge Taft. talking to an audience of work tngn1en in West Virginia. descended to the cheap plane of an ordinary politician by telling them if he were not elected they would be out of their fJobs However, the punishment in that case fitted the crime, for at the end of his speech he discovered he was talking in front of steel mill which had been closed for nearly a year past and that his audience was made up of workingmen out of employment.
 hNNd as MEiNe III ny possession an | affidavit made by Fred A. Harvey, a busI- | ness man of Minneapolis. Condensed, Tt | states that he has personal knowledge of | the fact that orders for goods in the com | mercial world are being given and made | subject to cancellation in the event of the | election of William J. Bryan president. That orders were being received by many of the wholesale houses, and for req sons of political capital many, of said orders and. for the most part nearly all of said orders were given in duplicate.
 'It was understood between the buyer and seller that the goods should be shipped | In any event. and that 1t was an uncondi- Iional order. but that the duplicate order might be given out by either party, but that neither should rely upon the same. The duplicate order contained the condition 1 hat it subject to cancellation in the event of the election of MT. Bryan as pres dent and the only intent and purport and purpose of the same was to create politi- ,al. capital to be used against MT Bryan"
 If could secure the names of these houses would risk the anti-boycott law ounded upon Judge Tafts decision and so trenuously applied by Republican judges in he of labor disputes by denouncIng uch concerns as unfair" and submit the 'ase to the sense of fair play of the Amer can people.
 The Democratic cry this year is Bryan md real prosperity" The Republicans preach prosperity but their type is more apparent than real During the last twelve 'ears of Republican government there has ,een increase in the cost of living of at east forty-eight per cent Every man knows t: every housewife knows it. To how many people has good fortune come to such an xtent that they can say their incomes lave increased forty-eight per cent?
 Any one with a business or a shopping memory going back twelve years can verify hese facts. Clothes that cost $25 in 1896 ost S35 today. The tariff bars foreign voolen goods. The glass you use if you are building a house or a commercial edifice lase more than doubled in cost, but the wages of glassworkers have not been in- reased.
 Try build your self a neat frame cot age and find out how much more lumber osts than it did twelve years ago. The increase is practically forty per cent. and vhile the lumber barons are rich and many f them occupy seats in the United States ;enate the people are hunting for some oth- IT material than timber out of which to construct their homes.
 Beefsteak that was 1s cents a pound then low costs 94 cents. but the cattle raiser loes not get the benefit of this increase. The beef trust, protected by the Republican arif system gets it all.
 Shoes that cost S3 pair in 1S96 now cost i4 and S5 a pair. Leather controlled by the rust and protected by the tariff has gone ID 52 per cent. and sole leather ITO per ,ent. The retail shopkeeper doesn't get he benefit of the increased price at which le must sell his goods, but suffers because consumers naturally delay to the last mo- nent their purchases and make fewer of hem.
 These conditions are absolutely depend
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