The banker organizes a national bank having $100,000 capital, with
which he buys $100,000 of United States bonds, “on which he draws
interest in advance and pays no tax.” The government engraves, prints,
and sends him notes to be used as money, to the face value of the
bonds. Nominally these notes cost him $5.00 a thousand. He lends them
out at from six to ten per cent on the thousand, or from sixty to one
hundred dollars on the thousand. Then by a system of bank credits,
which would be incredible if it were not so capable of proof, he
multiplies his loans until he draws interest on NINE times more money
than he ever put into his business.
To cap the climax, he gets the Government to surrender its revenue
to his keeping, lends out these millions also, ... DRAWING ANOTHER
INTEREST FROM THE TAX PAYERS WHOSE OWN MONEY HE IS LENDING BACK TO THEM.
What a mockery of equal and exact justice! What do you think of your
old party representatives’ business ability, who issue United States
bonds at 2, 3, or 4 per cent and turn around and loan it to the
bankers at one-half of one per cent? With their twenty-five per cent
reserves loaned to other banks and loaned to the gamblers of Wall
street, as well as to the ones operating a gambling hell of the like
kind in every large city, sending call money to eighty and more per
cent. “And at last the chickens come home to roost, ... when the bogus
dollars come to the doors of the bank clamoring for recognition and
redemption, these silk hat thieves get together, refuse to honor their
own notes, refuse to pay depositors, decline to cash checks; issue a
nasty Clearing House Certificate, compel the business world to accept
it as money, and thus MAKE ANOTHER PROFIT OUT OF THE WRITTEN EVIDENCE
OF THEIR OWN DISHONESTY.” The United States bonds are a first liability
of the Government. The National Bank notes are a second liability, and
these pawnbrokers of a nation’s energy and productiveness propose a
third liability based on your deposits and their capital, called for
euphony, asset currency (asses’ money). This is the way they want to
get the elastic currency (rubber money) whereby the exceeding hard
work of the banker is to sign his name to thousand dollar bills and
get in exchange your hard labor, inventive ability, and its products.
They tell you to “work hard, save your money, and put it in the bank.”
Why should your government tax you for their benefit, when you can do
it directly without them? “Is it ‘equal and exact justice’ to allow
six thousand national bankers to turn your credit into a mint for
themselves, at your expense? Is there any defense of a system which
turns Government credit and cash over to a favored few?” “They say
their issue of money is good,” but your Government issuing money to you
direct is “repudiation and national dishonor.” “Money is the life-blood
of trade.” Will you leave in the hands of these pawnbrokers the power
to cut your business in half, curtail enterprise, reduce the workers’
wages, and diminish thereby the markets of the country?
The Peoples’ Party position on the money question is based on the
United States Supreme Court’s decision, in The Legal Tender cases of
1862 and 1863, as well as the Supreme Courts of nineteen Northern
States.—Ohio Liberty Bell.