Democratic Sentinel, Volume 1, Number 49, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 January 1878 — THE FINANCIAL QUESTION. [ARTICLE]

THE FINANCIAL QUESTION.

The Real President. [From the Cincinnati Enquirer.] It is possible for two or three gentlemen iu this country who hold no political place, and who seem to be divorced from politics, while sitting in resplendent apartments and idly sipping champagne, to impose, by an indifferent word, a tax of $30,000,000 per annum upon the producers of the Northwest. This is an enormous power for unofficial men to wield. It would seem that the productive energies of a great people were really in the hands of these two or three voters who appear to take no part in the making of the laws, and who would, therefore, be supposed to be powerless to impose a tax affecting the welfare of the vast producing sections of the country. But what if these two or three gentlemen happen to be railroad Presidents ? The proposition is made ito make the rate so much; the other two gentlemen say: “Very well! let us make it that,” and in a minute the thing is done. Some other Presidents were assembled in New York on Saturday. Theywere gentlemen to whom even railroad Presidents must take off their hats. They occupy the throne. They preside over transportation not only, but all trade. They own the machinery by which all the business of the country is conducted. If the farmer buys a plow, or the washerwoman a loaf of bread, or the protective tariff man or the resumptiomst a Congressman, or a few patriots a Secretary of the Treasury, the omnipresent finger of these gentlemen is somewhere somehow felt. These are Presidents of banks. They were holding a meeting two days ago in New York, the city of banks, and of bank rule. They adopted some resolutions. They are as follows : Resolved , That, in view of the bill now under consideration in "Congress, which proposes, in effect, to supersede the existing law requiring the redemption of legal-tender notes iu gold coin, on and after the Ist of January, 1879, by making silver dollars of 412>£ grains a legal standard for the payment of all debts and measures of commercial operations in tho United States, it is the duty of bank officers to seriously inquire what effect so important a change in the circulating medium will have upon the conduct of general business, and upon the respective institutions under their charge, and what practical measures, if any, can be adopted to preserve their various trusts from the serious decline which will inevitably follow the passag e of the bill in question. Resolved, That a copy of these resolutions be telegraphed to the clearing houses of Boston, Philadelphia and Baltimore, inviting bank officers there to consider the same, and, if practicable, to send delegates to attend our meeting, Wednesday next, with a view to mutual counsel and concerted action. Resolved, That the Presidents of trust companies, savings banks and life insurance companies in this city be also invited to attend the same meeting and to participate in the discussion. It is proper for citizens to assemble themselves together and adopt resolutions designed to influence the action of the national Legislature. It is easier for bank Presidents to assemble than for the people, but. there have been some gatherings of the people to give expression to opinions on this topic. We don’t know how many met at the concourse of the bank Presidents, but in the West, when a meeting of the people is held and resolutions are adopted on this topic, the resolutions utter the voice of two thousand, three thousand, four thousand, five thousand people present, and of many more thousands of people who are not present. The resolutions of the people are exceedingly unlike these resolutions of the bank Presidents, but the fact that the Presidents of the banks are driven to the extremity of meeting and adopting resolutions at all is an indication favorable to the people. The monoy power has usually accomplished its purposes in the dark. These resolutions of the money power and their authors are deserving of some attention. The Chairman of the committee provided for in the resolutions is Mr. George S. Coe. He must be the very Coe that proposed that the national banks and John Sherman execute the Resumption act by taking the Government’s gold, the little it might have, and using it for banking purposes, and then lending to the Government, on good collaterals, the ability to. resume. The national banks were not only to orvn the business of the country, but the Government itself. This Coe must be the President of the New York ClearingHouse, whose members are all opposed to an “inflation” of the currency, and are agonizing for a “sound” medium of exchange, redeemable at any moment in gold, and who conduct exchanges to the extent Of $21,000,000,000 annually, simply by swapping promises. Mr. Wm. A. Camp, manager of the same clearinghouse, was Secretary of the meeting that adopted these resolutions. He is the man who records the fact that the machine of which he is an officer inflates the currency in his city till its exchanges reach $61,'500,000 in six hours, almost no money changing hands, and he, too, howls at the millions of people in the West and South who have no clearing-houses, and who lack the machinery for the conduct of business. He is in favor of gold, of wiping out the greenbacks because they are “ irredeemable,” but his clearing-house is composed of but fifty-eight banks, and, of the more than $60,000,000 in promises it swaps daily, not a dollar is redeemable in gold, and but few dollars are exchanged even in “ lawful money.” These are the men who meet to devise “practical measures” to preserve their various interests from the “serious decline which will inevitably follow the passage” of the Silver bill. What do these bank Presidents desire ? What do they propose to do ? The resolutions say that the same shall be “telegraphed.” The money-lenders are in haste. Telegraphed to whom ? To the clearing-houses of Boston, Philadelphia and Baltimore,” who are invited to join in this consultation of money-lenders, to prevent the enactment of the laws demanded by the people. The ‘ ‘ Presidents of the trust companies, savings banks and life insurance companies.” Were not two of these fellows sent to the penitentiary within a few days ? Hasn’t something been said almost every day of late about one or more of these institutions having failed, swallowing the earnings of the widow and the orphan, and the numberless needy ? , Are the institutions for the everlasting burial of savings, and the “insurance” of nothing but poverty to the policy-holder, to dictate the financial legislation of the country ? Are they the parties to talk about “nonest money ?” Are these the men who should prevent the passage of the Silver bill or hinder the repeal of the Resumption act? It costs us a large sum of money daily to print the story of the Bonners, and the Lamberts, and the Bunns, and the others whose names are even more familiar to our readers. The meeting of the bankers in New Orleans on Paturdsy, pißaultaneonsly with that

of the New Yorkers, is a further indication that the consolidated power of the banks will be brought to bear upon the settlement of these financial questions in Congress. Will Congress listen to these men or to the people ? And are these Presidents to be the real President of the United States ?