People's Pilot, Volume 4, Number 49, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 May 1895 — KEEP YOUR MONEY. [ARTICLE]

KEEP YOUR MONEY.

And Let the Bankers Hunt Their Grub Blsewhere. Few men, though satisfied with the truth of a theory, will act upon its rules if those rules happen to be against the customs that surround them. Reformers in the United States are all opposed to private banking (National banks are private banks). They see the dangers of the system, read in the papers day after day of the failures of banks and knowing that hundreds and thousands of these banks must fail because the larger banks are squeezing them, yet they persist in leaving their money in these, banks and doing business with them even when it is not necessary. Of course, when they read of these failures, It is something away off that does not affect them very much, and it is only when it comes home to them directly and when it is too late that they can see the necessity of acting upon lines of right. Last week one of the persons who applied for membership in our colony gave us a check on a bank for his membership and before the check reached the bank on which it was drawn, It had closed its doors and the savings of a life time were thus transferred to that great accumulation of capital that makes money kings in America. Why will men patronize banks except where conditions force them to? Banks are conducted by men just the same as other men, just as ignorant of the social system under which they do business as the average day laborer. The money left in the banks would be of no use to them if they did not speculate upon it. Men will permit banks to speculate with their money who will take no such risks themselves, and if the banks fail they lose all with no hope of gain. I do not feel very sorry for reformers when they keep any more money in banks than is necessary to do the necessary checking for their business. If the people know what is good for them, they will adopt the tactics of the banks — put their means in gold and keep it. All the thefts of money in the United States in a year do not amount to as much as the loses to the people by bank failures in a week. —Coming Nation.