The Bottineau courant. (Bottineau, Bottineau County, N.D.) 1895-1929, 1921-03-03
State Industries Had
No Evil Effects

No Evil Effects
"These figures show the utter alb
surdity of politicians charges that the
present state administration, the Bank
of North Dakota and the state indus
tries are responsible for the credit
stringency. An analysis Of the condi-
ton Of banks makes it as clear as day
that allegations made against the adj
ministration are for the purpose of
: partisan politics only and have no
basis in fact.
las I have shown, the private state
banks are s5O,OOO,O 900 shy of what
should be their usual resources. Now
the state has put into the state indus
tries only $1,050,0OO. Of that sum,
100000 has gone to labor, which
represents money that has stayed in
the state. The rest, $75O,OOO, has gone
into materials and represents invest
ment in the state mill and elevator at
Grand Forks The state has something
to show for It.
"On a basis Of s75O,OO0 Investment.
the state actually can be held respon-
sible for only that part of the defation
In the resources Of all the banks. That
sum represents one and a half per cent
Of the total $4,000, 900. In other
words, the private state banks them
selves have suffered SO and a half per
cent of the deflation; the state indus
tries are responsible for one one and a
half per cent"
Mr.. Thatcher's statement bears out
the declarations of F. w. Cathro, d.
rector general Of the Bank Of North
Dakota, before both senate and house
Investigating committees, that if the
private banks Of the state will pay
their obligations to the Bank Of North
Dakota, that institution would be in no
way embarrassed and could easily
meet the run IN it engineered by po-
Iitfcal opponents after the passage of
the initiated law, which gave political
subdivision t"reasurers the option Of
%depositing funds where they would.
Mr.. Thatcher's analysis also goes a
long way to explain the position Of
Mr.. Cathro, who had adopted the pol
icy of permitting funds to remain in
banks where the various treasurers
had deposited them, because with
drawal probably meant closing hun
dreds Of banks. He maintained that
policy, up to the point of being sent
to Jail by the house auditing commit
tee, bec~ Use, in addition, he said, it
would be disastrous to confidence in
the banking system to have the actual
condition of privately owned banks,
every one of which was. affected,
dragged out in the newspapers to
scare the people.
With full realization of the oppor-
tunity 1t offered political enemies to
make capital, the Industrial Commits
sion sustained Mr.. Cathro also by or
dering the Bank Of North Dakota to
halt payment for the time being on
withdrawals by various political sub
divisions where there was no sound
evidence that they were made for, any
other purpose than that Of embarrass-
ing the bank. To meet these with
drawals 1t would have been necessary
for the Bank Of North Dakota call,
in turn, on the private banks, and
the truth of it is they could not pay.
The Industrial Commission and Mr..
Cathro fought for a long time against
the attacks Of political enemies to
maintain their policy and protect the
credit fabric al much al possible.
The so-called investigation by the
house committee, however, gave anti
administration newspapers the semi
basis for wild yarns about the Bank Of
North Dakota being insolvent, unable