Decorah public opinion. (Decorah, Winneshiek County [Iowa]) 1895-1928, 1912-10-23
A BULWARK OF GOOD TIMES.

Ten per cent of the entire popula-
ton of the United States are depos-
itors in savings banks, with about
S4,250, 100000 to their credit. That
is, the total number of depositors is
100000 and it is probably far with
in the mark to say that the number
of persons interested in these depos-
its is more than double that number
that not fewer than 20,000,000 Of
individual citizens have their stake
in the public welfare and the security
and stability of American institutions
represented in this form of invest
ment, says the Dubuque Times.
The savings bank depositors are,
with infrequent exceptions, wage
earners, members of wage earners'
families or business men in a small
way, who take this method of putting
by a nest egg apart from the money
they need in their business. The
great manufacturing states have the
largest savings bank deposits and the
money has undoubtedly been earned,
as rule, in industries that owe their
very existence, to the republican pro-
tective tariff. The savings banks,
and that means also the ability and
the disposition of the American peo-
pie to save, have grown with the
growth of American industry under
tariff protection. In 1860, with a
democratic low tariff, the total saw
ings bank deposits were less than
$159,000,000 and the average per
head of the total population was
under SIS; today the deposits, as al
ready stated, are about $4,250,0
600 and the average per head of total
population is about $45.
This vast sum is invested in Sc
curities that represent and are de-
pendent for their income bearing
value on national prosperity, on the
continuance of Taft good times and
on the freedom of the American peo-
pie from the disturbance and up
heaval that would attend Wilson free
trade or Roosevelt revolution. Will
son, the man who says that the
Chinese are to be preferred to i'm
migrants from Europe and that the
American workers got the Chinese
excluded through fear of the superior
intelligence of the Mongols, is chin
wagging through the country against
the protective tariff, which has helped
nearly 100000 of our people to
put by in the savings banks more
than $430 each. Roosevelt is preach
ing third term in the White House
for himself with power through fed
eral Incorporation to hold in his
single grasp control of the financial
interests of the nation and of the
enterprises which give profitable en-
ployment to millions of American
citizens. Taft alone, safe and sane
and progressive within the limits of
safety, represents for the savings
bank depositor and for all the people
that respect for the rights of the in
dividual, for the security of property
and the supremacy of law and order
without which savings banks deposits
would be valueless and savings banks
depositors would find that they had
toiled and saved in vain.
These savings banks deposits are
a bulwark against which Wilson and
his free trade spellbinders will mouth
and rant in vain. They are equally
a Gibraltar against the waves of
socialism, of anarchy, of revolution,
dashed into fury by the desperate
and leckless appeals of the third
term candidate, whose legacy to the
nation when he stepped out of office
was the Roosevelt panic of 19O7-S.
The American people are not banker
ing for either free trade or revolu-
ton. They have a good thing in Taft
good times, and they mean to keep
it, and when the trial comes in No
vember their verdict will be for the
president whose very name is asso-
ciated with the highest ideals of cit
izenship, with true progress for the
nation and security in personal lib
-erty and property for the individual.