People's Pilot, Volume 6, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 July 1896 — Only a Word This Month. [ARTICLE]

Only a Word This Month.

I get a detailed official financial statement from the Treasury Department at Washington each month and most of the months show a decrease of money in circulation. All the details for the past year are not. now at hand so I will take Bradstreet’s October report which shows that- the money in circulation has decreased over sixtynine millions of dollars in the past year. Money is the blood of commerce and this is a young and growing country* but the policy now in vogue is to reduce the circulating medium. Would you bleed a growing boy and expect him to thrive on it? This policy is pursued in deference to the moneyed interests and the reason is easy to see. To diminish tee number of dollars that remain; and the man that has the dollars is better off at the expense of the producer, who must give up a progressively increasing amount of his produce for the dollar. This process has been going on for a long time. We need in this country a patriotism that will place the general good of the country above the interests of self or party. Doctors find that the getting of dollars is becoming more and more dffiicult, and the above is the cause-or one of the causes. Have you raised your voice against it? It is whispered that there is a quiet resolve in banking circles to induce Congress this winter to withdraw all government paper money and substitute, bank-notes Goverment paper money saved the Union fought

the Revolution, fought the Napoleonic wars and the French revolution. Can we spare so good a friend? And why need we? We saw above that the circulating medium is being manipulated in reference to the interests of the moneyed classes. What can we expect when the entire volume of paper money is issued by private institutions and withdrawn at their pleasure? The heart may beat ever so perfectly, but if it were not for the sympathetic system of the nerves including the vesomotors, •reaching every part of the body, the circulation would be imperfect. Our neighbor on the North, Canada, is progressing very nicely with its Postal Saving Bunk system. It was begun in 1868 with eighty-one post-office banks; the following year there were 231 postoffice banks, and the number has now grown to 731, carrying 120,628 accounts, averaging $222.22 each. The interest paid is 34 per cent.,and the cost of running averaged last year only S6B per bank! 1 I have mentioned to you several times the many advantages of a Postal Savings Bank system to the masses of the people—and consequently to you. Have you raised your voice in favor of them? The moneyed classes will, as a rule, oppose them; but which do yoq care most for, the moneyed classes or the masses of the people—the people who, by their labor, Create the vast wealth of this great counI try? Don’t you think that it is time that the moneyed classes were taking care of themselves, and that our legislation should

be directed toward the greatest good to the people? A man with a bank account of $222 in a United States bank is quite sure to be a good citizen and a desirable patron. Let his kind multiply. Let us so legislate that his kind may multiply.—Dr. C. F. Taylor in The Medical World. Did you ever think that England has a sort of are ferendum? When the goverment fails to command majority of the House of Commons the Prime Minister and Cabinet resign. Parliament is dissolved, and the question or questions at issue are referred to the people in the new elections. As a consequence England is making more progress toward goverment by the people and justice toward the masses than we are. They already have Government Telegraph Government. Savings Banks, etc, and if we had any way to get the expression of the voters on these questions. Why can’t we have a way? We have had many “boodle” Congresses, “boodle” Legisla* turesand “boodle” City Counils that should have been dissolved. But no; we elect a man for a certain term, ahd all the legal powers in the country can’t get him out until his term expires. Here is where the Imperative Mandate comes in. It gives the people the power to recall any public officer at any time in the following way: Any constituent may, at any time, draw up a document demanding the removal of said officer. When this document is signed by a majority of the voters in the territory which elected such officer his office shall be declared vac ant. It can be filled again by appointment or by a new election. Shall we have it?—Dr. C. F. Taylor in The Medical World.