Los Angeles herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1900-1911, 1908-02-08
DEMOCRATS
FRAME A NEW
BANKING BILL
MEASURE FORBIDS LOANS FOR
STOCK GAMBLING
JOHN SHARP WILLIAMS FATHERS
PROPOSED LAW
Minority Report from Committee viii
Embody What Are Believed
to Be Great Improve
ments
By Associated Press.

By Associated Press.
WASHINGTON, Feb. 7.-What will
be known as 1.-THE Minority Currency
sentative John Sharp Williams of Mis-
sissippi, the Democratic leader of the
house, who drew the measure as a re-
suit of a harmonious conference of
Democratic members of the house COM
mittee on banking.
The bill will come before the house
in the shaI of minority report from
the banking committee in it's present
form.
Among the provisions of the bill are
the following:
It repeats all laws permitting nation
al banks to keep three-fifths of their
| reserves in national banks of reserve
cities and similar laws permitting such
deposit of one-half of the reserve
amounts.
1t provides that not less than one
half of the reserves no-1 required to be
| kept in lawful money in central re-
serve cities shall be hereafter held in
gold or gold certificates.
1t does away with the payment of
national bank examiners by the fee
system and substitutes salaries, not
less than $4,000 nor in excess of $4,000
yearly with actual expense.
1t provides that the total liabilities
of any national bank, exclusive of the
liabilities of it's members, shall not ex-
coed one-tenth of the banks paid-in
and unimpaired capital stock and one
tenth of its impaired surplus funds;
and that in no event shall the liabili-
ties exceed 80 per cent Of the capital
stock.
No national bank shall loan in the
aggregate more than seven times the
amount Of its paid-up capital, plus its
unimpaired surplus
May Keep Reserves
| Any national bank may keep 90 per
| cent of its reserve in United States
| bonds. or bonds of states or In the
bonds Of certain municipalities but not
more than one-fourth of the total re-
serve may be kept in state OF munich
| pal bonds, and the bonC shall be &C
lceptable only of such municipalities
as have maintained their bonds at or
above par for six years preceding, and
have been in corporate existence ten
years, and have never defauited In
their funded debt, and whose net in
debtedness does not exceed Is per cent
| of their taxable property.
The comptroller of the currency, I'M
mediately after the passage of the bill,
shall furnish q copy of the new law
to each bank II. the country and in
uuire if 1t will accept the provisions.
| Consent shall be binding and the la
bilities attaching to consent may be
enforced by the comptroller. Agree
ment to accept the provisions shall en-
title state banks and trust companies
to the benefits of the new law.
The elastic currency feature of the
bill is contained in section which pro-
vides that these interconvertible bonds
may be deposited "in the nearest sub
treasury and the depositing bank
shall receive ir lieu thereof United
States emergency treasury notes sub
1ect to taxation, redeemable at any
| time and in legal tender.
For the creation of fund OF $1b,-
100000 for the payment of depositors
of failed banks operating under the
provisions of this law, there is au-
thorized imposition of = tax of one
sixteenth of per cent on the deposits
of banks so operating and whose con-
sent to be so taxed, has been obtained.
The final section of the bill provides
that no bank officer shall make loan
for the purpose Of stock gambling.