The Union times. [volume] (Union, S.C.) 1894-1918, 1913-08-08

scarcity in proportion to demand, the
private selfish purposes of the Ma
tional Governments chosen "depu-
ties" in the supply of money may be
subserved by refraining from avail
ing themselves of their right to is
sue currency. If they chose thus to
contract the currency, or (Which is
the same thing) to decline to increase
it in proportion to the normal re-
quirements of the growth of the
country, the Government has provid.
ed no machinery to prevent the dis
astrous effects of such dereliction.
The business world may be thrown
into a panic because of the scarcity
OF money. The "Money Trust" is the
creation, not so much of the brain of
j. Pierpont Morgan and his forerun-
ners and coadjutors, as of the Ma
tional Governments abdication of its
functions in favor of the national
banking system.
We have lived so long under this
system, the national bank in every
city and town is so much part of
the life of every business man, it's
ofhcers are so respected, and in the
South, are on the whole such good
men, so truly public-spirited as they
see the public interest, that It is hard
if not impossible for us to realize
that these banks are founded in fun
damental error. The system began
during the war and had its excuse in
the need of making an artificial mar
ket for United States bonds, which
had to be sold in large quantities to
produce the money with which to car
ry on the war and coerce the South.
In time, under the restored Union,
the Southern cities and towns came
into the system, and in the past half
century the people of the South have
necessarily been on terms of friend
ship with these banks and on terms
of intimacy with their beneficiaries.
The stockholders are of us. The an
nual dividends (nore certain than
the dividends of any other corpora
tion in our midst) endear them to
the man with money to invest, and
the loans to "tide over till fall" en-
dear them to the rest of us. But as
students of finance and of govern
ment we must perceive, and as Dem
ocratic reformers proclaim, in the in
terest of the people, that these banks
are founded on favoritism, on spec
ial privilege, and should be changed
as one of the first and greatest
achievements of the Democratic Ad-
ministration, representing the whole
people, who have for the entire life
time of most of us been excluded
from view in the plans and opera
tio1S of the Federal Government.
It Is now coming to be recognized
by those formerly blinded through
partisanship that the period of Re-
publican rule was consistently and
wholly wrong, and often wilfully op-
pressive. Those who have been it's
chief victims may we'll feel in bitter
ness that the presumption is against
everything that it created. Yet
prosperous and successful crime
(says Seneca) is called virtue, and so
long an era of dominance Of error
has necessarily perverted somewhat
the mental attitude of even Southern
men. Consequently the Democratic
party is by no means united on the
question of money. 1t denounced the
present system and the proposed AL
drich bill, but formulated no definite
constructive policy as in the case Of
the tariff. To the average man the
money question appears intricate and
unintelligible. He is not sufficiently
informed to know his and his coun-
try's interests. Those who are sup
posed to know have had too long
schooling in the national banks. We
have among us too many national
bank influences, too insidious and
ramlfying, to escape the effect In
moulding our views. Thus our long
habitation to Republican finance has
nnoculated even the South with the
virus of Republican special privilege.
We need a regeneration.
One of the cruel wrongs of the ma
tional banking law was that by it the
Government struck down land as a
basis of credit, forbidding the nation
al banks from lending money on real
estate mortgages. This necessarily
deprecated the value of land, and
has ever since continued to be
handicap and burden to the farm
owner and the home-builder. Yet
land is the one thing in the world
that by nature with local excep-
tlons) never depreciates but always