Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1909-11-19
CENTRAL
BANK IN AMERICA
GEORGE E. ROBERTS OF CHICAGO
BELIEVES THIS COUNTRY is
Tagging BEHIND.
SAYS OBJECTIONS MISS MARK
Protests Against Plan Do Not Apply to
Kind Of Institution That Is
Proposed.
NO DEPOSITS ARE REQUIRED.

KANSAS CITY, Mo-, Nov. 49,
''Nine-tenths of all the objections now
being offered to the central bank plan
miss the mark; they do not apply at
all to the kind of central bank that is
proposed declared George E. Roberts,
president of the Commercial National
Bank of Chicago and former director Of
the mint, in an address delivered at a
meeting of bankers in this city today.
THE central bank of issue offers
more comprehensive treatment OF the
currency problem than any other plan,
continued Mr.. Roberts. 1T provides
abundant elasticity under considerable
control. 1t provides a fiscal agency tor
the government through which Its enor-
| nous collections and disbursement may
be handled with the least disturbance to
the money market. 1t would give unity
and cohesion and elasticity to our en-
tire banking system which can be given
in no other way.
America Is Tagging.
And we are not pioneers in the move
ment. We are tagging behind all the
rest of the world There is not a coun-
try in Europe but has delegated the is
suance of its paper currency to cen
trail bank and made it the depositary of
the public funds.
THE japanese are as alert and en-
terprising as any people i'll the world.
| They have made study of admins
trative methods the world over. They
began the organization of their banking
system back in 1872 by copying our sys-
tenn of national banks, with note issues
| based upon the public debt that IN a
course of ten years they discovered that
they had not copied the best system IN
the world. Then they abolished it and
established the Bank of Japan, semi
official institution modelled after the I'M
perial bank of Germany,
"In the cities, the bankers, under the
pressure of emergencies, have learned
to come together and assume, without
any legal sanction, some of the tunc-
tons of a central bank. We saw the
clearing house in 1907 receive the ordi-
nary commercial assets of their members
and issue all impromptu currency upon
| them. and that currency passed into cir.
cuIation and served the purpose of
money The only trouble with it was
| that it had no legal status, the public
was unfamiliar with it, it was in it
self symptom of disorder, but the prln-
ciple upon which those issues We're
| based is the principle of the central
bank.
No Deposits Needed.
and what those of us who favor a
central bank are now advocating is not
an independent, competing institution,
like the old bank of the United States,
not great overshadowing institution,
that will gather deposits from all over
the cOuntry-in fact, we do not want 1t
to take deposits at all-but central or
ganization of the existing banks, call it
central bank or a central clearing
house, or a central agency or what you
like, that will do for all the banks under
the authority of law what the clearing
house did for their members in 1907 an
organization that will render certain
services to the government, and to the
banks, and to the public which the indi-
viduai banks are not so well qualified to
PERFORM