The Salt Lake tribune. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1890-current, 1911-11-06

degree, for the United States shonld
reserve 10 itself the complete iurisdic.
tion over it's own financial processes.
In the directorate Of the National Re
serve Association tho United States,
while supplying practically the bulk or
the financial strength. would be repre-
sentcd by only about one.yirhth of the
directorate The government furnishes
the sinews of war. and turns over the
control TO the bankers. This will not
strike the people favorably; and it is
practically assured beforehand that
Congress would not agree to anything
of the kind.
As presented last winter, the Aldrlch
plan provided that the President of tho
United Stat should have power TO re
move the governor Of the Reserve AS
socation: but this revised plan takes
away that power. and vests the right
of removal in the board of directors,
which is chiefly composed Of bankers.
The point in this is, that if the gov
doing things inimical to the interests of
The United States. the President could
remove him under the former plan. Now
the President cannot; and If the inter
csts OF the banks were set in onnosi-
tion TO the interests Of the National
treasury. the National treasury would
suffer, because the directorate, com
posed chiefly OF bankers, would sustain
the governor as against the interests OF
the United States II is bad change,
ing Of the government in the interests
of the banks whenever the governor
of the Reserve Association saw fit 10
exercise his powers in that direction.
An Improvement in the plan is the
portion Of the new draft which allows
state banks and trust companies con
forming 10 the standards fixed, 10 be-
come members Of the banking trust,
and TO bc represented III the directorate
of the National Reserve association
This is clearly necessary " the tinan-
clal resources of the country arc TO
be brought to bear upon the solution
Of the currency problem. Tho National
banks could not solve that problem
alone; and cooperation of tho banks
and trust companies doing banking
business is necessary to bring the bank
ing operations of the country to sin
Gle stapdard.
Another amendment proposed IS de
signed TO meet the criticism that
bank once Joining an association. can
never Withdraw from ii. Meeting this
proposition the new draft provides that
a local association may suspend 4 bank
which fails 10 maintain its reserves or
comply with other requirements Of the
law That is, bank desiring 10 get
out Of the association TO which il has
subscribed must allow itself to get into
default and he kicked out. There is
no way whereby il eau voluntarily and
houorabv withdraw; it must get out
by being forced out in disgrace aud nm
der cloud. This. surely, is not either
good business or good sense. There is
no improvement i, proposition like
this.
But the whole scheme is objection
able, in that as suggested. it forms
bankers trust. The local banking as
sociations provided for arc substantial
" identical with those in the Vreeland
bill. which the bankers themselves re-
iectcd as impracticablc. There is no
reason TO believe that tie bankers
would favor such associations now. any
more than they did when these vcre
first proposed in the Vrceland law.
And there is no sufficient guarantee
in this revised plan for the protection
of the interests of the treasury Of the
United States; on the contrary. there
appears raid upon IT, There is no
provision dealing with the grccnbacks
Under currency system such as is pro.
posed by the Aldrich Monetary Com.
mission. the prime. indispensable foun.
dation stone would be to get rid of the
greenbaoks. But the grecnbacks are
left. They will always bc disturb.
ing element IN any such scheme as
that proposed by Aldrich. They repre-
sent n government currency which ia
absolutely in OPPOSITION TO such cur
rency system as the Monetary Commits
sion proposes.
The currency system should be either
by the government with the govern. !
ment in control. or the government
should not supply the sinews OF war
for banking trust. II ,here is to be
n banking trust. let that trust stand |
alone and not have the benefit of the !