Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1918-05-25
coNscRIpT OR yoLuNTEERg
1t Is Up to Capital 10 Decide What Role
1t Will Play in the Prosecution
Of the War

of the War
ITO WHAT extent must the Govern
ment conscript capital for war pur-
poses in order to force it to serve the
nation as labor is serving it?
That the banks are aware of what is
expected of capital was indicated by the
remarks of John H. Mason, of the Com
mercial Trust Company, at the Penn
sylvania Bankers Association meeting
in Atlantic City, when he said that If
they had not co-operated in floating the
last Liberty Loan they would have found
themselves in the same position as the
railroad men: the Government would
have virtually conscripted them.
E. P. Passmore, governor,of the Fed
eral Reserve Bank of this city, indorsed
the views of Mr.. Mason when he said
at the same convention that the banks
must b. ready to participate in much
more strenuous financial campaigns.
If the State banks and trust companies
join the Federal Reserve system they
will put themselves, in Mr.. Mason's opin-
ion, in a position to cooperate with the
Government much more effectively than
if they selfshly remain outside of that
system. Conditions may arise which
will force the Government to bring them
into the system.
We know what the resources of the
nation in man-power are, for when the
conscription law was passed enrolling
all those between the ages of twenty-one
and thirty-one we were told that there
were more than twenty million men of
military age in the country. We know
that the national wealth is more than
one hundred and twenty billion dollars.
But few, outside of financial circles. are
aware that the banking resources of the
nation amount to nearly thirty-three bill
lion dollars or that they have increased
in the four years from 1912 to 1916 by
about fourteen billions.
This is only one form of the national
wealth, but it is the form in which the
mobile part of it is assembled, that part
which can be used for new industries, for
providing capital for enlarging old in
dustries and for underwriting war loans
when such loans need to be underwritten.
We have not yet reached the time when
it is necessary to call on the banks to
underwrite the loans, for the people
themselves are subscribing for the bonds
out of their own capital.
But there is talk of the necessity of
"conscripting capital" in order that it
may be put on the same basis with labor.
Now, what would "conscripting capital
mean? The Government takes a man
from his occupation, puts him in uniform
and gives him a gun and pays him
wage which is not much more than
enough to support him. 1t assumes the
right to have him killed in battle-that
is, to be destroyed. But we should re-
member that it does all in its power to
preserve the man-power of the nation
by taking care of the wives and children
Of the workingmen at the front. A GER
tain percentage of the conscripted labor
will be destroyed, but it is not taken
primarily for the purposes of destruction,
but for the purposes of protecting and
preserving the lives and liberties Of those
who stay at home and the liberties and
lives of the future generations.
1t is necessary to take vast sums of
money for the prosecution of the war
The sums taken by the taxing power
may be likened to the men who are
killed in battle 1t is destroyed beyond
recall. If the great body of invested
capital should be seized, or a large part
OIL II, we SlOulu nave COnllSCdllOI anu IUL
conscription. But if the Government
finds it necessary to use its power to
compel the banks and trust companies to
lend it money at low rate of interest
it will adopt toward capital the nearest
possible parallel to the conscription of
the man-power.
Capital has volunteered thus far, the
capital of the banks and that of the
private citizens, just as the mass of the
men have accepted the draft law as a
Just method of apportioning the burden
of fighting among the population of the
different States and among the men en-
gagged in different occupations and bear
ing varying burdens in civil life. The
realization of the bankers of what is
expected of them, as manifested in the
Atlantic City speeches, suggests that
capital will continue to volunteer so long
as the war lasts.