Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 41, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 October 1908 — BRYAN WAS HERE; SPOKE AT DEPOT [ARTICLE]

BRYAN WAS HERE; SPOKE AT DEPOT

Democratic Candidate for President Devotes Most of Speech to Bank Deposit Guarantee.

William Jennings Bryan, the democratic candidate for president, was in Rensselaer this morning, and spoke from the rear of a special train at the depot for about twenty minutes, from 8:40 to 9:00 o’clock. County Chairman N. Littlefield and Attorney Edward P. Honan, who has been a friend and champion of the Nebraskui during all of hjs campaigns, went to Chicago Monday evening and .came to Rensselaer on the Bryan special. The first stop made out ofXhicago was at Hammond, where Mr. Bryan addressed a large crowd. The train did not make another stop until it, reached Rensselaer, although a large crowd h d congregated at Lowell, with the understanding that it was to stop at that place. Probably 2,000 people bad assembled at. the depot here, and Joseph Littell, of Indianapolis, who spent the night here conferring with the local dequ>crats, spoke from the t'unk trucks for about fifteen or twen'y minutes. His speech did not elicit much app’au e. Shortly after he had closed bis remarks the special train glide! in, and Mr. Honau introduced Mr. Bryan and he entered into his discussion by saying that the voters were entitled to know what the officials would do if entrusted with authority. He then discussed briefly the trust question as related to the tariff, and then entered upon a discussion of the plank in the democratic platform that propos e an adjustment of the banking busiress to require a plan of guarantee to the depositor. Mr. Bryan did not offer any new argument to the crowd that listened to him. He said what has often been said before to the effect that the person that has money wan’s to have a place to deposit it that is beyond doubt, and the relief that he and the democratic platfoim proposes is to have all the banks formed into an association that will supply a fund to guarantee all the depositors in all of the banks. He then favors a law that will make the punishment severer on the banker that fails and a law that will not only punish the bank official who loses the depositor’s money at speculation, but the banker who invests their money in speculation. Mr. Bryan assumed that because the republican convention had failed to adopt a guarantee plank they were opposed to any plans that would make the depositors secure, and ignored the laws that have been passed in Indiana and other states within recent years to bring about the result so ardently demanded by democratic speakera. And we are wondering if most people don’t know that the last se. si n of the Indiana legislature passed a law that provided for the examination of state and private banks and that would have prevented the continuance in business years ago of the McCoy, Parker, Gilman and o’her banks. Had this law been in effect fifteen years ago, it would have found the McCoy bank insolvent at that time, and it would have been closed .up. It would have closed the Parker bank when the first crooked transaction was discovered, and the Goodland bank would never have been able to have stood after it made its first unsafe loan. This law did not go into effect until the Ist of last January and it was the knowledge that his bank could not withstand the examination that caused Robert Parker to close his bank on Dec. ‘l9th. These bank examiners now make regular visits to the banks all over the state and every transaction of the bank is investigated by the examiner. He counts the cash on hand, he opens the books, he examines every loan, he verifies every security and he proves the bank solvent absolutely or be closes its doors, and as these inspections are frequent it is not possible to get a bank in very bad shape between the visits. And a banker can no longer draw the kind of a sen-' tence that Tom McCoy and Fred Gilman <fld, for the law has prescribed a different and severer penalty, and the banker who is now guilty of einbezzelment will be sentenced for from two to fourteen years in the penitentiary. Of course, with all of these safeguards that the state legislature has adopted, there may be failures in extreme cases of dishonesty, but we do not expect them to be either frequent or severe. —— The republican party is not opposed to a proposition to secure the depositor, and it has adopted as a plank in its platform for a measure that will create postal savings banka, that will provide for the government iccepting money on deposit at any

; of the postoffices, and which would i place behind the depositor the government itself. The republican party is determined to give to the people every security that they demand, and , while we are thoroughly convinced that the details of the plan that would make the strong banker guarantee for | the weaker one is wrong, the fact . that'the republicans in their nationI ai convention refused to adopt it does not indicate their refusal to enact legit la tion that will result in the j welfare of the people. The plan that is proposed will, it is believed, destroy the rivalry that is the basic hope of reward and anything that tends to that end is socialistic and undesirable, no matter how attractive they may appear on the surface. The republican convention refused to adop the measure because it was a radical step toward socialism, and because | they were not prepared to say that the people of the country would approve any plan that would destroy the hope of accomplishment upon which this government is fotmded. The republican party has never deceived the people and what it pledges it does if it has the power, and it is probable that the bank guarantee proposition could never have been enacted along the lines it is proposed. But the people should know that the Fowler bill, which is now pending proposes a form of guarantee, and it is a republican measure. But to revert to Mr. Bryan’s story about a farmer that wanted to borrow |3OO at the bank and had to have some of his farmer frends sign the note. Then when the’ farmer had S3OO to put in the bank be wanted the banker to have some of his banker friends to go his security for the return of the money. It was a real good and laughable story, but the best laugh did not come until the rediculousness appeared. The fact that a farmer some times gives security when he buys a farm implement of a dealer, does not imply that the dealer will get a competitive dealer to go in with him to make good a guarantee on an implement for which cash is paid. Mr. Bryan took I this German farmer through his different stages of business growth, from [the time that he began'to work out and then bought a team of horses and rented a piece of ground and finally bought the ground and later had a [farm or two paid for and had money to put id the bank. It was not until [this year that he discovered that he needed a bank guarantee and he had | prospered all these years and developed under the conditions that have maintained during the past 12 years. And according to Mr. Bryan he was now going to desert the republican party that had enacted legislation that had made it possible for him to prosper and save his money and simply vote for a plan that would keep it for him without producing the opportunity to make it. As a democratic farmer at Parr said last Friday, “I would a great deal sooner have the getting guaranteed.” And here we are, concluding the twelfth year of 1 republican national • control, the [ ' twelth year of the operation of the [ Dingley tariff measure, and the eleventh year of good prices for the j farmer, during which time the bank ( deposits, national, state and savings banks, have increased almost three fold, and the wealth of the property of all the country has developed and advanced until there is no comparison with the dark days when the WilsonGorman tariff measure doted the factories and forced the laboring man to idleness, and yet Mr. Bryan, the man of the free silver, imperialism and government ownership of railroad vageries would ask you to forego everything that made it possible to gather money together and simply look for a place to keep it after you did get It Let us first guarantee the “getting” by returning to power the party that stands for the progress of the country along all right lines and for a candidate that will never array himself against the interests of any of the people. Taft and a republican revised tariff will assure continued pros perity and the republican pary, in control of the affairs of government will meat these quest ions fairly as they come up, discuss them in the open with the people and the people will rule, gs they always have. Mr. Bryan was talking as the train pulled out' and as he stopped, the crowd let up a great cheer for him, almost as lusty as when, twelve years ago, he told them that the crown of I

thorns and the cross of gold was weighting them down, and could only be destroyed by the adoption of a free silver-pokey: -t Was he wrong then? Corn is 75 cents a bushel, and every farmer in Jaspe county has proven that Bryan was mistaken. Let us guarante the “getting” and what we shall do with it will coms along with other level headed legislation for which the republican party can be trusted.