Jasper County Democrat, Volume 8, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 December 1905 — POLITICS AND BANKING. [ARTICLE]

POLITICS AND BANKING.

If there is any part of the President’s message you don’t like, try another part. There is plenty of it. Of course you can fool some people all the time, but when you consider what kind they are it hardly seems worth while. Maybe Mr. McCall is withholding that resignation as a Christmas present with which to delight the policy holders. Hetty Green and Mark Twain have both celebrated a seventieth birthday. Mark has a lot of friends and Hetty has a lot of money.

A “magazine article” by Zimmerman, giving full particulars of the little scheme by which he put J. Pierpont Morgan $6,(XX),000 to the bad, would be sure of ready acceptance at his own price.

John C. Shoemaker, a former owner of the Indianapolis Sentinel and prominent democrat, died at his home in Indianapolis last Friday, aged almost 80 years. He Berved one term as Auditor of State and was very prominent in Democratic politics.

While they do uo harm yet it is frequently annoying to have some sneaking whelp barking at one’s heels ail the time, and it is sometimes necessary to stop for a moment and give them a good Bound kick in the slats to send yelping to the bushes.

Tbe famous Washington Park race track at Chicago is to be divided into city lotß and sold. This decision is attributed to the action of Mayor Harrison a year ago in prohibtiug betting at the track. The club in control of the park has been in existence for tweutytwo years, Hnd during that time seventeen American Derbies have been run on the course.

There will be a delegate conventiou at Motion, Tuesday, Jan. 2. 1906, at 1 p. m., to select a new member of the democratic state committee for the Tenth district to succeed J. Jbs. Faulknor of Michigan City* who will not be a candidate for re-election. Kirby Risk of Lafayette, and Geo. Robey, editor of the Benton Review, are said to be candidates for the place Jasper county is entitled to seven delegates in this convention, who will be selected by the county chairman or county central committee.

John R. Walsh, multimillionaire, banker, republican politican and promotor, has gone to the wall in Chicago. His three banks in Chicago owe some $26,000,000 and the assets are about $1,000,000 less than the liabilities. Other Chicago banks—no doubt for their own protection—will take the paper and pay out the liabilities, it is said. The Walsh failure is another example of too many irons in the fire and mixing politics with banking. The following editorial from an Indianapolis paper is worthy of serious thought. There are many reflections suggested by the failure of the three Walsh banks in Chicago. Little need be said of the commercial reasons for the smash, for they are not peculiar. Mr. Walsh undoubtedly branched out too much, was interested in too many enterprises, and as a result he strained his credit and the credit of his banks to the breakiing point Nor is it strange that there should be suspicion of crooked work. It is even said that Mr. Walsh and those interested with him violated nearly every law enacted for the regulation of the banking business. His banks, we are informed, were really not banks at all, but, as the Chicago Tribune says, “simply a huge cash drawer for his side lines of rpilroads, mines, stone quarries and other business investments.” The Tribune further says:

There was a hole in the bottom of the drawer which led into the pay envelopes of graders, firemen, locomotive engineers, stone quarry men, coal miners and laboring men of thirty different trades. The depositors dumped their money into this omniverous cash box, and it was used by Mr. Walsh in a vain endeavor to turn into a golden reality his dream of railroad and allied commercial supremacy. Out of the $26,000,000 deposited in the halfway financial station maintained by Mr. Walsh, $15,000,000 was loaned by Mr. Walsh to companies privately controlled by himself.

Here are some of the Walsh “sidelines:” The national Biscuit Company, the Northwestern Elevated Company, the People’s Gaslight and Coke Company, Northwestern Gas, Rand, MoNally & Co„ Bedford stone quarries, the Indiana Coal Company, the Chicago Chronicle, the Peoria Gas Company, the Akron Gas Company, the Southern Indiana Express Company, the Indiana railroad, and a dozen other concerns. In a word, Mr. Walsh has for twelve years been up to his neck in the promoting business. Forced to take over one outside concern after another, the burden finally become so heavy that he could no longer carry it. But in all this there is nothing new, except the extent of the operations.

It is equally clear that Mr. Walsh was opposed in his various sohemes by many powerful enemies, among them, it is said, the Standard Oil Company. Railraod interests fought him desperately, and did what they could to keep him out of Chicago. And every one of bis ventures afforded a point of attack. He was also opposed by powerful political influences, for he and his banks were deep in politics. And here is one of the great lessons of the failure. Walsh used his political pull to get public deposits. Controlling two banks, a trust company, a newspaper, and having the closet relations with both political parties, be was able to build himself up as a financier. But at the recent State election a treasurer unfriendly to the Chicago National Bank was chosen, and he drew out $2,000,000 of the State money. The new drainage comissioners were expected to withdraw $2,500, 000. And so of the $2,000,000 of park funds. Mr. Walsh was plainly a political banker, and to get control of public funds he had to make alliances with certain elements, and to fight other elements He fought the railroads. Ho fought Carter Harrison. Ha espoused the cause of “Billy’’ Lorimer, aud when Lorimer was overthrown Walsh, of course, suffered. The election of Deneen as Governor was auother severe blow, for Deueen was unti-Lorimer and anti-Walsh. And his election lost Walsh the State funds, the park funds and the drainage canal funds. The city administration, moved by its -hatred of Walsh, shut down the racing game at Washington Park, and thus closed one source of Walsh’s revenue, Finally a man, C. H. Bosworth, whom Walsh had removed from his position as president of the Indiania Southern, was appointed national bank examiner. All his influence was gone, in city, State aud nation- Enemies that he ought never to have made, and that no banker ought ever to make,

closed in on him. And we see the result. For years Walsh and his banks have been doing business on the public funds. They were largely dependent on them. The control of these funds was secured only through political deals. When the men with whom the deals were made fell from power, the funds were lost. The moral is plain. It is that a banker ought to be a banker and notthing else. He has no business in politics. If he gets public funds, and of course they have to be deposited somewhere, honestly and in the ordinary course of business, that is all right. But to go into politics to get them, to tie up with this or that party or this or that candidate, to finance campaigns and make bonds for public officers, to make deals and to work pulls in order to secure public deposits, is not good banking—indeed it is not banking at all. The political bank is a menace to every one connected with it, and to the community in which it exists. Walsh’s career preaches this sermon most eloquently. The insurance scandals preach it. Walsh, if he had conducted his business in accordance with sound principles, would have been better off without the State or city money which they controlled. Our bankers must learn to be bankers and nothing else. They can not go into politics without making friends and enemies who are alike dangerous.

With Congress on his hands, Mr. Roosevelt undertakes to regulate foot ball. This proves how much greater man he is than Grover Cleveland. Presumably the theory on which some of the Senators voted to withhold honors from the late Senator Mitchell, is that he committed the unpardonable offense of being “found out.”