The Guthrie daily leader. [volume] (Guthrie, Okla.) 1893-1996, 1911-11-14
TWO MIGATY QUESTIONS
WILL Be CONSIDERED
Aldflch's Proposed Banking Bill
and Appropriation fox Western
Rivers Improvement
(By Associated Pressj

Kansas City, Mo, Nov. 1.-THE
twentysecond annual session of tn,
Irans-Mississippi Commercial con
gress opened here today with ad
dresses of welcome by Senator VIII
liam ]. Stone and Governor Hadley
and the annual address of Col. Frei
W. Fleming, president of the con.
gress.
Seven hundred delegates were pres
ent when Chairman Trumbo, of Mus
kogee, raped for order. Secretary of
War Stimson and former Senator Aid,
rich were the principal speakers at
the opening session.
from every state west of the Mis-
slssippi river, and from Alaska. Ha-
wan ana the Philippine Islands the
ueiegates are attending the congress.
lnese delegates are appointed by the
governors OF the states. counties,
cities, and also by all kinds of com
merciai and business organizations.
An Association that Has Been Felt
mighty questions will be probably
nnally settled before the congress ad-
J0nrns. For the resolutions adopted
Dy the delegates assembled at these
congresses sound the keynote of feel
ing In the West that the lawmakers
In the East may act accordingly And
always in the twenty-five years that
the congress has debated and reso1ut-
ed the national legislators have heed
ed the keynote, Through this bodys
influence millions of dollars have
been appropriated by congress for re-
claiming land, both by irrigation pro-
Jects and drainage canals. The exist
ence of the Postal Banking system is
due largely to the efforts of the
Trans Mississippi. Through the en-
deavors OF this body rivers have been
improved into navigable streams, and
scores of other useful and beneficial
things have been accomplished.
But this year the congress has two
things to deal with, each of them OF
colossal Importance. The one-cur-
rency reform is OF national import
the other of local interest-tne west
ern rivers Improvement appropria
tion.
The former has to do with Senator
Aldrich's proposed banking bill,
which provides for a centralized
banking system controlling one ma
tional reserve fund ready, and guar
anteeing to render the country panic
proof and at the same time, to open
up for use the millions of dollars stor
ell in the separate banks as reserve
funds.
The Vests Forum for Free Speech
The Trans Mississippi Commercial
congress is THE Free Forum OF the
West" 1t is a sort OF clearing house
for western ideas, which crystalize
into legislative form in Washington.
The resolutions adopted by the con
gress are forwarded to the national
president, who. unless he oversteps |
precedence, drafts them into his an
nua1 message to congress. In 1891 |
in Kansas City the Trans Mississippi
was conceived, though it got its rea
birth a few months later in Manitou, |
Colorado. At that time three organi-
cations existed in the West-the
Deep Water Convention, the Trans |
Mississippi Convention and the First |
Western States congress The first OF
these was a movement for gulf ports,
and the latter two devoted attention
to the national congress in the hope
that agitation would force recogni- |
tion on the part of the Eastern states
The East, having political control got
political patronage, and therefore the
money, leaving the West without ap-
propriations for improvements.
Alva Adams, former governor OF