Jasper County Democrat, Volume 8, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 February 1906 — DISREGARDED THE LAW [ARTICLE]

DISREGARDED THE LAW

Secretary Shaw Aided His Banker Friends. LOST TEMPEH WHEN CRITICISED Made No Attempt to Carb Lawbreaking by Frenaied Financiers Sympathy AU For Wall Street—lnterests of the Common People Neglected and Ignored. What Secretary Shaw terms a “national epidemic to loan money” lust summer is the cause of the late money squeeze in Wall street, where the rate of interest mounted to 100 per cent on the last days of the old year. “Now from all over the country,” says Secretary Shaw, “these people are calling for their money.” He seems to hold a grudge against “these people” because they are now asking the Wall street bankers to repay the money which has been on deposit with them for mbntbs and on which they only received 1 or 2 per cent Interest. Secretary Shaw treats the banks much better than “these people” do, for he has deposited all the available money of the people that has been paid as tariff and internal revenue taxes with the national bankers without charging them one cent of interest and is evidently sorry the people have not been more taxed so that he could further relieve the necessities of the stock gamblers, for he further says, “The Kansas farmer damns the New Yorker who buys stocks and the Kansas banker curses at the Wall street financier who does not return his money the moment it is called for.” It seems that Representative Bourke Corkran criticised tlje treasury department for “assisting a vicious system” in depositing money in Wail street, which was quoted to Secretary Shaw, who wrathfully replied: “Bourke Cockran knows as much, about that as he does about 25(1 other 1 things on which he is continually talking. He knows as much about finance as he does about running a steamship. I suppose if the sum total of human knowledge were blotted out tonight Bourke Cockran could supply It tomorrow morning.” Most of us who have followed Secretary Shaw’s* career as secretary of the treasury have noticed his close connection with Wall street and the frenzied financiers who run most of the banks in that region and bls anxiety to aid them. It has been also noticeable that Secretary Shaw has not enforced and does not enforce the law of the land against his banker friends, who are continually breaking it, for in an interview regarding the Walsh failure in Chicago Secretary Shaw Is reported to have said: “That part of the banking ISJL Prohibiting the loanlng_of _ more

than 10 per cent of the capitalization to one man may have been violated. That is not a criminal violation, and all that can be done is to liquidate the bank and pay off the depositors. The violation of that law by one bank Is no more than has been done by almost every bank in the country.” This utter disregard for a law which congress, as Secretary Shaw should know, especially enacted to prevent frenzied financiers of the Wall street band from borrowing more than they could pay if a pinch came was for the protection of the public. Secretary Shaw evidently fears the criticism of Representative Bourke Cockran on that and other numerous sins of omission, commission and ignorance he has committed and thinks to belittle those who call attention to his mistakes and lawbreaking and who are honestly trying to protect the public. It is hardly necessary to defend Bourke Cockran from a charge of ignorance, for there is probably no public man who studies questions on which he speaks more than he, and no one excels him in forcible and clear statement. Bourke Cockran's little finger knows more than all of Shaw's body. President Roosevelt should demand the resignation of this conceited ignoramus he has allowed so long to incriminate and disgrace his administration or he will be blamed when the crash comes for the sins of Shaw which the frenzied financiers have induced him to commit. As it is now, the bankers, with the connivance of Shaw, are nearly all violating the law. Is that a square deal?