Jasper County Democrat, Volume 11, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 October 1908 — EASILY UNDERSTOOD [ARTICLE]

EASILY UNDERSTOOD

Mr. Bryant dhows Why the Individual Favors Protection of Bank Deposits. A MATTER OF INTELLIGENCE Banks Should Attend to the Banking Business and Not the Government.

No Issue in this campaign appeals more strongly to the, individual than the protection of bank deposits. Thousands and thousands of republicans will vote for Mr. Bryan on account of this one issue, which he has presented so clearly to the people of the nation. In a recent speech Mr. Bryan presented this issue In a simple and most convincing way. He said:* “Of the many policies proposed in our platform, the protection of bank depositors is the simplest and most easily understood. Why, my friends, this question is so easily understood that I suppose there is nob a person in this audience who is not able to understand it. I do not mean that every one, everywhere, can understand it I draw the line here: When every person reaches the period of intellectual development where he is able to see that when a man puts his money in the bank he ought to be able to get it again, he ought to have Intelligence enough to understand this subject; but until he gets to this point I do not know how to reach him. 1 take It for granted, however, that you are all sufficiently advanced to be able to understand that when you put your money In a bank you ought to be able to get It out again. Now, my friends, there are just two questions to be considered in this matter. One of these 1 have given you. The other question is, who must make it secure? Our position is that as the banks make their profits out of the people’s money, the bankers ought to give the insurance the people require. Now, I had supposed that that was a self evident truth and that it would not be denied. “I have made no speech without discussing the guaranty of bank deposits in all parts of the country. After 1 had made my speech in Baltimore, explaining our system and presenting our arguments in support of it, my attention was called to an advertisement in one of the papers. In my speech I had said that you could insure your house, you could insure your life, you could insure your buggy or your barn, but that you could not insure your money. And in this advertisement my language was quoted and the advertisement went on to say that I was mistaken, for a certain fidelity company was prepared to insure deposits. And then I found out how they do It down there. You put your money in a bank, and then go, and get somebody to insure it so that you can get it out of the bank again. I believe the time has come to compel all the banks to stand back of the banks and make good the presumption upon which you deposit your money in the bank. "Now, my friends, you may ask if the banks are not now sufficiently secured. That Is what the bankers say. They will even tell you that only occasionally a bank fails, but the trouble is that we cannot tell in advance which bank is going to fall. Look at the notice they hang up. Does it say, ’this bank will fail?’ No, the notice says ‘this bank is closed,’ and if bankers follow out this plan I will agree not to urge this insuring of deposits. Let the bank give notice three months in advance of a failure so the people can get their money out before the failure. "Do you think the banks are sufficiently secure now? The postmaster general says, in his report in favor of the postal savings bank, that we are sending millions of dollars to Europe to be deposited in government savings banks there, and the people who send their money there would rather send it across an ocean three thousand miles wide than to risk the banks of this country. I say to you that we ought to make our banks here so secure that money will not be driven out of the United States to find a safe place of deposit. That money which is driven to Europe ought to be kept here and used in the business of this country. Not Only does money go to‘ Europe, but money goes into hiding, and this Is about the time of year when we discover some of it. You will see in the paper, every once in a while that Mrs. So and So for the first time this fall made a fire and was mortified to find that her husband, without her knowledge, had been using it as a bank. A man in New York said last tall, when the panic was on, that a billion dollars was In hiding under carpets. I do not know whether that estimate is too high or too low, but I know this, that if I were a banker I would be ashamed to have an old rag carpet running rivalry with me as a safety deposit vault, in time of danger. “If any man says that the banks are sufficiently secure I will remind him that there is not a national bank in the United States that can get a dollar of Uncle Sam’s money without putting up security. The state demands security; the county demands security; the city demands security; and each village demands security; and the fraternal orders are now demanding security, and I believe the time has come when the farmer, the merchant and the laboring man should have security when they put their money in a bank. “In Oklahoma they have had this plan in operation for now some six months. I learned of one failure there and in forty-two minutes after the bank suspended, tb« man in charge had an order from the government to Say every depositor in full, and the uainess went on without interruption And when he telephoned out to the farmers and said to them, ’The bank has suspended, come in and get your money,’ they answered, ‘We are busy with the crops now, we will be in in a . r * n ▼V you do hero In year state whan a bank gate shaky!

la It the way you do when a bank suspends? No! the very rumor that a bank is a little uncertain makes a rush of depositors, and they make it insolvent whether it was insolvent or not “This jflan protects the depositors; ft protects the community, and it is good for the bank as well. “I would rather see the banks attend to the banking business than to have It traneferred to the government, and becauae I prefer to have the banking business done by the banke rather than by the government, I urge the guaranty of depoeltO ae the easiest solution of our difficulties.”