People's Pilot, Volume 5, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 June 1896 — GOVERNMENT BANKS. [ARTICLE]

GOVERNMENT BANKS.

The British Government Has Millions On Deposit. One of the greatest bankers in the world is the British government. As a bank it holds nearly $500,000,000 in postoffice deposits payable practically on call, and pays interest at the rate of two and one-half per cent pei’ annum to its depositors. Last year the deposits increased sso,ooo,ooo.—The Philadelphia Press. Why can not the government of the United States have postal savings banks as well as the government of Ungland? Are we inferior in intelligence? No. Why is it then? The answer is plain: This nation is ruled by the money-lending class—called national bankers. —Ex. What is really needed is the repeal of the national banking laws, a complete knockout of every national bank of issue in the United States. They are positively of no benefit whatever to the people and are a positive hindrance to the promulgation of good and safe government. After disposing of them there should be established, as a medium of exchange betweeft the government proper and'the people as a whole, at every county seat and in all cities of over 20,000 inhabitants, a government bank of deposit. There could the people who wished to deposit money for safe keeping make loans direct to the government and receive therefor a government certificate of deposit, representing sums from one dollar up to thousands or more. There would never be any run on or any suspension of banks under such a system; every depositor would know that his money was absolutely safe from loss by peculating clerks or officials, and perhaps, a result which would be worth more than all, the government would no longer be in the hands of a money power, for the government itself would be the money power, and the governmental finances would no longer be held at the mercy of 2 per cent of the country’s population. Pages could be covered with reasons why national banks should be abolished and government banks established, but to it all, the dyed-ih-the-wool democrat or republican, of the rank and file, while admitting readily enough that “politics are rotten to the core,” and that one party is as bad as the other, will reply that the idea may be a good one but it can never be established, as it is “not popular.” Not popular with whom? Why, with these selfsame 2 per cent and their hangers-on, numbering, perhaps, 30 per cent of the entire population. Can it never be established? Why, if the 70 per cent of interested people should will it, the change could be accomplished before the first of February next. It is a sad admission of serfdom and the ownership of his soul by others, when any man declares that any reform can not be established in this, the country, where "every iApn is a sovereign." —St. Louis Evening Journal.

The democratic party can indorse free silver and nominate a free silver candidate if Wall street will allow it, but all the brass band buncombe, and all the money of Wall street can’t wipe out its past record on the silver question. Do you catch the point? In order to save the democratic party from utter dissolution, which would result in the disintegration of the republican party to some extent, Wall has evidently decided to allow the democratic party to adopt a free silver platform and nominate a free silver candidate. Their main object in this is to coax the populists back into the democratic party, but it takes something more than a silver bait to catch intelligent populists—they have got further along than that.