The National Banks now have outstanding notes to the amount of
$550,000,000 in round numbers. If the privilege of issuing these notes
as money were taken away from the National Banks, the paper money now in
circulation would be reduced to $550, 000,000. Suppose the Government
should issue an equal sum in its own notes to take the place of the
National Bank notes—how could the Government put its own notes into
circulation?
(1) It could _immediately_ put the entire amount in circulation by
applying it to the part payment of the public debt. We are the richest
nation on earth: the richest that history knows anything about—yet we
keep ourselves mortgaged with a perpetual National Debt because the
favored few demand bonds to bank on. If National Banks were abolished, as
real Democracy always sought to do, there would be no further excuse for
keeping the Bond-Mortgage on the National estate.
(2) It could put the entire amount $550, 000,000, in circulation
_gradually_ by paying the national expenses with it.
(3) It could put the money in circulation by building Government
railroads with it.
(4) And my opinion is that the whole sum could be benevolently
assimilated by that Panama Canal business which the sleek Cromwell and
his Varilla unloaded on the impulsive Roosevelt.
Second Question: Yes. We wage no war on private banks. As long as banks
confine themselves to legitimate banking, loans, discounts &c., they
are not a source of national danger. It is only when a certain class of
bankers, like the National Bankers, usurp the Governmental function by
supplying the country with money, that they are, as Jefferson said, more
dangerous to Republican institutions than standing armies.
Question 3: Yes.
* * * * *
MEMPHIS, TENN., Nov. 30, 1905.
_Hon. Thomas E. Watson, New York._
DEAR SIR: I am a regular reader of your Magazine, which I find
very interesting and instructive. I believe in the Public
Ownership of Public Utilities, but fear that does not go far
enough to cure the land of the evils that now curse it. With
Government banks, Government railroads, Municipal Ownership of
Public Utilities, there would still be that awful strife of
the many for bread and butter. If we may ride cheaper on the
“Railhighways,” if we get our Water, Gas, and Electric Light
cheaper, will not the wages of the workers go down as the cost
of living decreases? Will not then as now, the “iron law” of
wages be operative?
Please answer in your Educational Department.
Yours,
⸺ ⸺.