The times-news. [volume] (Hendersonville, N.C.) 1927-current, 1933-01-27
Fear not, o little flock
NEWSPAPERS OPINIONS
BANKLEsS COMMUNITIES

Senator Huey P Longs diatribes have given the
impression that the Glass bill would endOw the So
called money octopus of Wall Street with almost
unlimited power. The strenuous tilibusterer from
Louisiana talks of the sanctity of states rights
They and the peoples rights, is led to beleye,
would be trampled underfoot by the enactment OF
the pending banking measure.
The accusation is not without its humor. SEN
ator Glass is Jeffersonian Democrat, yielding 20
none in his adhesion to states rights. Moreover
ne could not by any stretch of the imagination De
called friend of the metropolitan banks within
Senator Longs meaning. Against no other senator
do the banking spokesman have to be more on the
alert IN defending their existing privileges They
have contested every inch of the ground that Sem
ator Glass has gained in the long and splendid ca
reer which he has devoted to banking reform.
Other sections of his bill are intended to uproot
several abuses that have come to light in the last
three years. In respect of or two of them, the
banks have been Unremitting in their opposition,
and must have smiled in looking at the picture that
Senator Long has been painting of the doughty
Senator from Virginia.
During his prolx filibuster Senator Long never
bothered to interpret the Glass bill correctly The
fact is that it does not seek to allow the metropol
tan banks free rein. There is no likeness in it to
the British or the Canadian system, which allows
nationwide banking Such system would be alien
to the traditions and the genius of the American
people. What it provides is statewide branch
banking under certain specified conditions. Senator
Glass has foreseen the danger that, even under his
plan, the metropolitan banks might establish
branches in communities already endowed with suf-
fcent banking facilities, and crowd out old-estab-
lished institutions in the process.
To avoid such situation, he and the senate have
accepted an amendment proposed by Senator Sam
G. Bratton that branch banking be permitted to
national banks only in states allowing this practice
to state banks and under the same restrictions as
are placed on state banks. The safeguards against
the dangers that Senator Long foresaw, in short
appear to be ample.
There was all the appearance of defending the
existing banking lineup in Senator Longs agitation.
No intelligent observer can do that Nearly II, 900
banks have failed in the last decade. How could
they help it when 80 per cent Of them had capital
izations not in excess of $4,000? Senator Van
denburg the other day gave the senate some telling
statistics from his own state of Michigan. Sixty
cities which all had banks year ago are now
bankless. And 1900 other towns are in the same
plight This condition is by means unique, but
could be duplicated in the experience of other
states. Nothing like it has occurred in the tortured
history of American banking.
1t is no wonder that people are falling back OF.
barter and scrip money. The eashlessness that has
reduced them to these medieval conditions is Iii
great part product of banklessness In some areas
the prospect is held out that scrip money might be
welded into permanent system. If this feeling
spreads there is real danger of the rise of separate
money systems development which would set at
naught the national currency system which is one
Cf the mainsprings of this strong and integrated
Republic.
The rectifcaton of banklessness such as the
Glass bill provides would promote the return OF
currency order. Unfortunately, one reason that
new methods of exchange are regarded as system
and not as stop-gap is that the people are de-
sparing of real reform, and Senator Longs flibus-
ter did nothing to relieve that feelng.-Christan
Science Monitor.