The Watertown weekly leader. [volume] (Watertown, Jefferson County, Wis.) 1912-1917, 1916-11-01
No SECURITY EXCEPT THE BEST.
Personal Character, Capacity and In
dustry Tangible Assets.

Washington, d. c. Oct 81, 1916.
Dear Cousin BEN
It is a wonder that some Of you
horny-fisted farmers did not throw
that smooth-tongued stock salesman
right into the lake when he proposed
to fleece you by selling you the stock
in the Joint Stock Rural Credits Bank
at double it's face value. / am glad
that my letter reached you in time to
put you onto the game. The idea OF
a city sharper expecting to sell bank
stock having a par value of 500 to the
farmers for 5000, out Of which he
would keep at least $50 a share! And
yet it is no more preposterous than for
the leaders of the Democratic Party
in Congress to say to the tenent farm
ers and to the million of farmers that
are stranded in the cities, that since it
had passed the Reserve Bank Act the
farmers don't reed a personal credits
system The longtime farm mort
gage loan act which they have passed
does not reach the needs of farmers
who have no farms to mortgage or
who don't want to put a longtime
mo. tgage on their farms. The plat
forms of ali political parties both in
1912 and 1916 promised Agriculture
adequate relief from it's financial dis
advantages The Democrats have
been asked for fish and have given a
serpent. Farmers expected bread and
have gotten stone.
Let US take few minutes to inves-
tigate their absurd claims that the
Bank Of Banks" called the Reserve
Bank" is going 10 be of substantial
help to the intelligent, Woodworking
honest tenent farmer or to the city
wage Garner who was raised on farm
and who wants to get back into the
country Remember that that means
far more farmers than are effected by
the Farm Loan Mortgage Act: The
Reserve Bank Act permits national
banks to rediscount farmers notes
with the Reserve Bank, under certain
conditions. The notes must not run
loDger than six months AS practi-
cal farmer, tell me how many crops
can be planned for, seeded, harvested
and marketed so that the cash returns
are available to pay a note at the bank
within six months from the time the
note was given? You want to plar
your crops not later than March Most
crops require all summer to grow
Your harvest may come in August bu
cash doesn't come for many weeks
after harvest as rule. In other
words, you wouldn't have your cash ir
time to take up the six months note
and you would have to go to your
banker and ask for a renewal. One
renewal can be granted by the banker
provided the banker is willing, but
there is no compulsion about it. Now
if the banker happens to have some
calls for money from his big Gust
omers, the big manufacturers or mer-
chants of the city, about the same time
as you come in for the renewal of your
note, he is quite likely to refuse you
Any borrower who has to ask for a
renewal is a second-class costumer
The banker doesn't like it. At any
rate, you are at the mercy of the bank
not any rights that the banker is oblig-
ed to respect when you go to asked a
renewal. And that is absolutely all
the benefit that the Reserve Bank Act
holds out to farmers. 1t invites you
to put your head in a trap, to submit
yourself to the liberality and benevo-
lence of your banker.
Now, what is the sense of anybOdys
setting up a claim that it is impossible
to provide a personal credit co-opera-
tive system for financing farmers with
out real estate security? There isn't a
country in Europe where the falsity
of that claim is not den onstrated
We don't usually look upon Italy as
the most progressive of the European
We think of Italy in connection with
its big picture galleries rather than
with its hard, practical business mach
lnery, yet Italy has solved the problem
OF personal credits which these Dem
ocrats say cannot be solved in enlight-
ened America. In Italy there are
more than 900 personal credit banks
actually owned by the borrowers
They were started on the basis of the
collective credit of industry only, and
through a series of years the total
losses of these 900 banks aggregate
only 6-100 of per cent of their loans
Similar credits institutions are SC
successful in Germany, France, Den
mark Sweden, England, and the
smaller countries of Europe, as tC
make the assertion that they are not
possible, simply ridiculous, yet the
Democratic Congress is so eager tC
glorify its Bank and Banks,' the
Reserve Bank system, that it cannot
think out any way whereby the hon
esty, the character, and the industry
and intelligence of American farmers
can be financed safely.
In other words, the Democrats
acknowledge object failure in their
attempt to give what the Republican
platform demands-"An effective sys-
TEN of Rural Credits as opposed to the
ineffective Law proposed by the pres
ent Democratic Administration"
Of course / do not know exactly how
the problem will be solved by the Re-
publican Congress next winter. ]
simply know that even those Republi-
cans who voted for the Hollis Rural
Credits Bill say they reconized that
any law establishing any form of rural
credits is better than no law, but that