Year: 1867

-
Governors mansion in the evening He win leave for
Hartford this morning
Jny Cookies Special Plea for the National


Banks.


We published yesterday a long letter on
our national bank system, signed by Jay
Cooke, though probably not written by him.
1t is a carefully concocted plea, and, we
must say, an ingenious one, for the national
banks. This laboriously prepared defence
from such quarter shows that those who have
made and are making colossal fortunes out Of
the system are beginning to be alarmed. They
see how rapidly and powerfully public senti-
ment is growing against the banks, and they
find it necessary to make an effort to save their
fortune-making privileges. Certain questions
are put by two national bank presidents to
tional banks, the character OF their currency,
the nature Of their privileges, their present
position, the difference between them and the
old United States Bank, and ending with the
question. "Why should the system be
perpetuateds 2" The questions are made to Ht
the answers and the answers to fit the questions
very nicely, and were evidently manufactu red
in the same laboratory. The bankers did not
want the information, and the argument was
made expressly for the public. Indeed, it is
composed, like o claptrap political stump
speech, for popular consumption, with an ear
nest and almost trembling appeal to the people
to save the system from threatened destruction.
The election in Ohio brought out humble and
pleading manifesto from Mr.. Chase on the negro
suffrage is ue, and now it has forced another
from his righthand man on the banking and
financial system of which he was the father.
But it will take many Jay Cookies to save him
from the odium attached to his ruinous and
dangerous financial policy or to prevent the
popular condemnation that threatens it


The burden of Jay Cookies plea is of mega
tive character-that is, he argues that the old
State banks were not good, were inefficient and
insecure, were not uniform, and gave currency
which had not the same value in all places,
and therefore the national banks must be ex-
cellent. There were defects undoubtedly, in
the old system Of State banks, though not 80
many or of such magnitude as il represented
The banks OF this city and some other cities. for
example, were substantial and answered the
purpose very well. But admitting there were Sc
rious defects and that under the changed state of
things produced by the war and agreat national
debt it was necessary to have new and i'm
proved system Of banking, with a uniform
currency, does that prove the system actually
adopted to be o good one, Does it prove
that it is better than the other? If there are
not the same evils connected with it there may
be other and greater evils. One plaster ap-
piled to q wound may not heal it, while the
application of another and different one might
be still more injurious. We maintain that this
is really the case as 10 the banks. We have
substituted worse and far more dangerous
system, on the whole, than that which existed
previously.


Mr.. Jay Cooke lays great stress upon the
services Of the national banks to the govern
ment during the war; II wo rightly remember,
the first aid the government received-and
that, too, in its greatest need-was q hundred
and fifty millions from the old banks OF this
city. Mr.. Chase, then Secretary OF the Treasury,
could have received more-could have received
oil he needed-from our bankers and the
bankers of the other large cities, had he car
ried out the plan first agreed upon Of selling
his bonds in the market, from tim, to time, for
what they would have realized. Then we
should not have had an inflated currency nor
a suspension Of specie payments. But this did
not suit his purpose of making colossal
fortunes for Jay Cooke and other
friends, and Of establishing his favorite
national bank system. Instead Of the
national banks aiding the government, 1t
was the other way-the government aided the
banks. The Treasury Department issued both
the bonds and the currency. The national
banks did not supply specie, as the old banks
did in the case of the hundred and fifty mil
lions referred to; they only gave back to the
government Its own notes. The process was
only sort Of prestgiatory manipulation Of
government bonds and notes-a mere change
OF the bonds and currency from one hand TO
the other, the government furnishing all the
capital, aud the banks and other agents reaping
the profits. No, IL was not the banks that aided
the government In the war, but the govern
ment that aided and enriched the banks by
means Of those active presses in the Printing
Bureau. That Is where the capital came from,
and not from accumulated boards Of national
bankers, who, in fact, had nothing but what the
government put in their hands. A to any
services in future, to carry on . great war,
which, II Is to be hoped, will never be needed,
these banks would not be required the Trca-
sury could get along as well or better without
them. In great and wealthy country like
this there is always suniciency Of accumu-
lated individual capital which the government
can get, II properly sought and negotiated,
without the agency Of sixteen or seventeen
hundred banks scattered all over the republic.


with rogard In n Uniform currencv NO could