The Washington herald., 1913-10-14
Banker, Not Supreme.


typifed by the banking and cur
rency bill now pending before Con-
gress, has been of great advantage.
The people have been made to
think. They have discussed intel
ligently among themselves what
heretofore has been regarded as a
most abstract question-namely, the
principles of banking and the rela-
ton of currency to banking and to
the material affairs of the people.
In Boston there recently assem-.
bled a representative body, who
spoke authoritativsly for the bank
ers of the United States. Nearly
three thousand men were at that
gathering whose vocation is bank
ing. There have appeared before
the committees of both houses Of
Congress representative bankers
who have set forth, sometimes with
some technicalities of expression,
what their views respecting an
adequate banking and currency sys-
TEN were. Occasionally the remark
is made that the bankers do not
know it all and that the great con-
structive work, which must be done
before an adequate banking and
currency system is secured, is quite
as likely to be achieved by men
who have had no intimate nowl-
edge of practical banking as by any
of those who are esteemed the great
forces in the world of banking.
But these various ideas and many
discussions and frequent agitations
all create most healthful impulses,
SO that when Congress establishes
by law banking and currency sys-
tenn, which will take the place Of
the one now on the statute books,
it may reasonably be accepted as
representing the commanding pub
lie opinion throughout the United
States.
Sometimes the statement has been
made that President Wilson and his
Cabinet are not practical bankers,
and therefore are, presumably, not
so we'll qualified to form Judgment
as to what the best measure would
be as would men who have been
engaged all their lives in the study
of banking and in the practical ap-
plication of the principles of bank
ing.
Yet, all the precedents are against
this view. The greatest construc-
tive forces in finance the United
States has possessed were men un-
trained in banking. Alexander
Hamilton created by original pro-
cesses of thought the American
Treasury Department. Yet he was
only a lawyer. The wonderful
achievements of Albert Gallatin,
when Secretary of the Treasury,
especially his financing of pay.
ments to France for the Louisiana
Territory, was the work of a man
who had been a farmer in West
ern Pennsylvania. Robert Morris
brought forth by the mysterious
forces of his intellect money of
which Washington stood in impera-
tive need at the time of the Revo-
luton. Yet he was only a merchant.
The great Secretaries of the Treas
ury were lawyers. Spaulding, of
Buffalo, and Potter, of New York,
who furnished to Salmon P. Chase,
himself lawyer. the plans upon
which our present national bank
ing system is based, were both law
yers. Gen. Grant had no practical
knowledge of finance, yet he wrote
a message vetoing the so-called IN
fatioR bill which has become a
classic of sound reasoning, and is
esteemed one of the great triumphs
of his administration.
George B. cOrtelyou, whose ad-
ministration of the Treasury De-
partment during the panic of 1907
was one of the most brilliant |
achievements in the history of that
department, was the private secre-
tary only of Theodore Roosevelt.
There was great banker in |
England, Lord Goschen, who was, !