People's Pilot, Volume 4, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 March 1895 — Banks in Politics. [ARTICLE]

Banks in Politics.

Ignatius Donnelly.—The banks are running the country and running it into the ground. You cannot pick up a newspaper but you will read of a meeting of bankers, here or there, to dictate to congress—or of President Blank of the Blank National Bank, drawing a series of resolutions, to instruct members of the house or senate, the bankers philanthropists? No: their business is to lend money and collect business upon it. As a class they have not a particle of connection with the people, except to suck the substance out of them. Are they looking out for the welfare of the masses? No; they are simply trying to concentrate the wealth of the masses in their own pockets. You can’t blame them. That |is their business. But to govern a republic so that the many will be prosperous and the greed of the few be restrained —Bah! You might just as well expect a Bengal tiger to establish an orphan asylum. He might furnish the orphans, but not the asylum. Now, we are not objecting to bankers per se. ■ Many of them are excellent gentlemen; but when it con es to a money-lending j class controlling the legislation of this groat republic we protest with all the emphasis we are capable of. All our disasters are due to them coming out I from behind their counters to dominate the politics of the country. Let them stick to their legitimate business of money grabbing.