The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-01-22
WeUborn Tells Bankers LalU WiH Be Enforced
Chdes Green and Kilby fer Insisting States Rights Mrs. Burnett Asks Rainey Not EuIogize Late Con-
 gressman-Big Crowds Attend Martens Hearing
By HIGH ". ROBERTS
lum. and the bankers of

. S1 ,000OO0 per annum and the bankers of Alabama of a revenue almost as greN l The most serious fight against the fed eral reserve system Is limited to GAN gia and Alabama, although Texas has protested more or less insistently, and l one or more northwestern states have ] threatened to appeal to Congress This Iappeal would scarcely bear fruit, how ever, for a similar appeal was involved | in an amendment proposed by ex-Senator Hardwick of Georgia, which ecountered overw helming defeat.
 Mir Wellborn today, in a sharp tee- gram to Mir. Green. superintendent of state banks of Alabama, declared his amusement that in this particular case he and Governor kilby raise the cry state 1 rights" where in all other respects state rights have been voted down in Alabama, and my faction of which the governor and the superintendent of banks were leading lights. The governor of
 the Atlanta bank adds that it is not sta-c rights the bankers desire. but bank | rights. "which would glve them the priv i ilege to continue to charge the public for | paying their customers checks drawn on themselves"
 The telegram of Mir. Wellborn. which applies with equal force to the Georgia situation, follows:
 The telegram of Mr. Wellborn, which applies with equad force to the Georgia situation. follows:
 |. T am attending Pan-Amercan financial conference in Washington and regret my inability to accept your invitation to be with you today.
 May I say to the state bankers who are meeting in Montgomery that the whole question now in vofved in the pro- posed action of the federal reserve bark is one of obeying or resisting a law of Congress. No bank can successfully re- sst paying checks drawn on it at par
 when presented at it's counter, and this is al 1.-the federal reserve bank proposes to do if state bank does not want to re-
 init to us al par.
 "All national banks remit at par. and
 also the state banks who have joined the federal reserve system, and no bank has yet to my Knowledge gone out of
 business on account of the loss of ex- change.
 Tt is amusing to hear state rights in- voked in Alabama since that state has so recently voted down the principle of state rights when it applied to other really desire is bank rights rather than state rights, which would give them the privilege to continue to charge the pub lie for paying their customers checks drawn on themselves.
 Permit me to call your attention to the fact that this entire question was fought out in Congress on the Hardwick
 amendment and the banks lost Tn their effort to procure the right to charge the federal reserve bank.
 There is nothing to do now but aEsse
 by the law and this is merely what the
 federal reserve bank is trying to en- force"
 W. P. c. Harding, governor of the fed
 eral reserve system, declined today to
 make a statement relative to the situation
 in Alabama and Georgia but he gave
 the correspondent of this bureau knowl-
 edge that he was standing pat in his
 determination to abide bly the law in-
 volved.