Rensselaer Republican, Volume 26, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 July 1894 — Populist Cranks Versus National Banks [ARTICLE]

Populist Cranks Versus National Banks

... • ■ —■—-—-• Pendergast will hang tomorrow unless his friend and fellow-anar-chist, Gov. Altgeld interferes in his behalf. The Johnston Republican Congressional convention has been postponed eight days on account of the strike; or until next Tuesday, July 17th. The firm stand which President Cleveland has taken in favor of law and order, and against the spirit of anarchy is the most creditab e act in both his administrations. It goes far towards wiping out the disgrace of his Hawaiian . fiasco. Anarchist Altgeld says that the says that the reason the railroads have not run their trains is because they had no men to run them. But he knows very well that there were plenty of men to be had, as soon as adequate protection was afforded them. It is stated that Judge Burson, of Winamac, has withdrawn from the frep-for-all scrub race for the Democratic nomination for Congfessman, but we notice that his home organ, the Winamac Journal, still keeps his name up as its congressional candidate. The London Times, looking at our great coal strike, our railroad strikes and our marching armies, says that America again shakes the idea that America is the workman's paradise. This is true. America does that every time her people taste of the fruit of FreeTrrde tree. It is that act which puts the entire people of out an industrial paradise. The Democratic party is striving with all its energies to remove the tax which foreign exporters pay for the use of the great American market, the finest in the world, and raise the money needed for the expenses of the Government by direct tax upon the American people, including a large tax upon their breakfast tables. This The deficit in the revenues of the Government for the present fiscal year will reach nearly SBO, 000,000. The deficit in the pockets of the laboring men is a good many times that sum. When the country wants a change it is always entitled to it In 1892 it voted the change. Since then it has done a good deal of work figuring up the costs. The result will not encourage a repetition of the experiment.

Abraham Lincoln’s first speech on the Tariff question was short and to the point. He said’that he did not pretend to be learnedjjin political economy, but he thought he knew enough to know that “when an American paid twenty dollars for steel to an English manufacturer, America had the steel and England had the twenty dollars. But when he paid twenty dollars for steel to an American manufacture, America had both the steel and the twenty dollars.” That was the sum and substance of the Tariff question as he viewed it. The statement that President Cleveland has declared the city of Chicago under martial law is not correct. The proclamation is one of warning to the people and of direction to the military, and while it does not proclaim the rule of martial law, it paves the way for such a proclamation, in case the necessity for it should arise.

People have a right to strike, but they have no right to compel others to strike, by force, nor to prevent by force others from working; nor to take or endanger lives; nor to destroy property; nor to wreck trains, or blockade railroads, or burn bridges; no right in short to trample on the rights of other people A notable feature of the present troublesome times are the offers that are pouring into the President and governors of states from G. A. R. posts and other old soldiers, of readiness to help put down the Debs rebellion. These offers are not confined to ex-Union soldiers either, but many old Confederate veterans are ready to take up arms in the cause of law and order. We have no doubt that if worse came to worst, an army of half a million war veterans could be got in the field within 30 days time. For many years the democratic papers and orators, and for a less time the Populists have been sowing the seeds of discontent among the people. They have raved at the and the corporations. They have made the working people, and as far as they could, the farmers believe that they were the victims of oppression, that they were not as prosperous and well paid as they should be; that the “plutocrats” were living off the fruits of their labor. These long years of demagogic and anarchistic teachings of calamity, are at last producing their inevitable results. Everywhere throughout the country the working people have organized to fight against oppression which never existed except in the rant of demagogues and anarchists, and today there is riot and lawlessness everywhere rampant, and a condition of affairs that almost any untoward event may develop into ruinous civil war. South Bend Tribune: Dave Hill spoke plain words to his Democratic brethren in his senate speech on the tariff question. He is down on mugwumpery, populism, Coxeyism, and everything in the shape of false gods, false prophets, false methcds and false theories that will lead the modern Democrat astray from the principle. He prefers defeat and the preservation of self respect, he says, rather than follow the leadership that takes up every passing ism of the hour. He slaps hard at that portion of the party temporarily in the saddle who seek to crowd the infamous income tax, a relic of the war which Republicans have repudiated, upon the party now, and which he says will only •FQRIT I-tt-HT — —thft - I JftlTlOPrßTilf j party with reckless and headlong speed into the abyss of political ruin. Go in, David, you are on the right track.

From every section of Great Britain, newspapers are received says the American Economist showing how great the insular interest is in American Tariff progression and retrogression. One of the latest of these comments, found in the Bristol Times, June G, gives “particulars relative to the passage of the American Tariff Reform bill, upon which such great hopes are placed by our manufacturers, their employees and the peopje generally.” This Eng lish authority upon American affairs then proceeds to explain that the Tariff bill is before the Senate where the Democrats have a majority, but that they have been compelled to make concssions, because “one or two of their number violently oppose the taking on of an income tax section.” But for this opposition of Senator Hill it is stated that “the bill would have passed that body (the Senate) long since,” a delay which is regretted by the Bristol Times. It still, however, endeavorsj to cheer its readers, and while regretting that our pro-English policy has not been so rapidly adopted as they had hoped, it advises that the time will come when the people may rejoice and the British bonfires may be lighted if the “Yankees like to reduce, import duties,” which [.reduction “cannot fail to bring about a vast increase in our (English) exports.”

Hon. R. fi-Horr, in N. Y Tribune. The Government does not loan money to the National banks, and never has done so. There is not one word of truth in the statement that such loans are made, so often repeated by the Populist speakers and Populist cranks. The Government simply furnishes the National banks with a lot of printed blanks. These blanks are of no value whatever until they are signed by the bank officers; and when they are so signed they become the bills of that bank —that is to say, its . .promissory notes. They are not in any way whatever the notes of the Government. So long as the bank is solvent it attends entirely to the redemption of such bills. The Government destroys old and mutilated National bank bills when returned to it for that purpose and sends to the National banks whose bills have been destroyed new blanks, which the bank officers sign and issue in place of the bills destroyed. If a National bank fails, then the Governmen sells the bonds whih the bank has previously deposited with the Government as security for its circulation, and from the proceeds of such sales the Government redeems the bills of such insolvent bank. But it redeems them all with money that belongs to the bank and not with the money of the Government. * * * * This whole talk about the Government loaning money to these institutions is the merest twaddle, It has no foundation in fact. * * Our present National banking system is by far better than any other adopted in this country. I doubt if there is a better system on the face of the earth.

As to why the Populists are constantly demanding the abolition of these banks would be answered by different persons in, different ways. In a nutshell my answer would be, because they do not know any better. They get in the habit of finding fault with people and institutions in the United States which are in any way prosperous. With the Populists it seems to be a crime for any one to do anything successfully or to accumulate any money, no matter how honestly the accumulation may have been made. I know of no Successful enterprise in the entire United States which meets with their approval. They seem to have an especial spite against National banks. know of no reason why they should single out these banks from all the other institutions of the country unless it be because they serve the people better and are safer than other institutions of that nature. One of the cardinal doptrines of the Populist creed, if we may judge of that creed by what they are all the time preaching and teaching, is that success is a badge of fraud. They insist that accumulation is of itself, evidence of robbery. That proposition is not true. The combination of capital is oftenFof the greatest benefit world. A successful business can be just as honest as a failing business. Men otten accumulate property in this world and rob no one while they are doing it. A man may have a large income and expend it all and save nothing, and all the time be no more honest than another roan who has the same income, lives more frugally and accumulates a competency. 1 hrift is just as honorable in this world as profligacy. One man has just as good a right to save a portion of his daily earnings as another man has to spend all he can get.

It is an unfortunate state of mind when a man gets to that point where he can discover nothing good in this world. Our country is not the worst place on the face of the earth for people who are struggling to get an honest living. The struggle for subsistence is often a serious one. There are many drawbacks all over the world for people who are compelled to work in order to live. Life is a struggle and all the world is not a play house. It is no more so however, in the United States than in the other countries of the world. Indeed, honest effort and careful methods are better rewarded in this country than elsewhere. It is better though through one’s entire life to look after things which give one hope and courage rather than brood over difficulties, many of which are common to the entire human race. ' Above all things one should avoid the Populistic plan of finding fault with institutions which are really the most perfect ever yet discovered. If one must give himself up to constant fault finding, he should try to find fault with the worst things in the world, and not with the best