[Volume XXVII
THE CHICAGO BANKER
8
			
STATE BANK OF CHICAGO			THE FARMERS’ AND MECHANICS’ NATIONAL BANK OF PHILADELPHIA, PA. 427 CHESTNUT STREET Capital - - - $2,000,000.00 Surplus and Profits 1,348,000.00 ORGANIZED JANUARY 17, 1807 Dividends Paid - $12,847,000.00 OFFICERS Howard W. Lewis, President Henry B. Bartow, Cashier John Mason, Transfer Officer Oscar E. Weiss, Assistant Cashier ACCOUNTS OF INDIVIDUALS, FIRMS, AND CORPORATIONS SOLICITED PRESENT NUMBER OF STOCKHOLDERS 930
ESTABLISHED 1879 S. E. Corner La Salle and Washington Streets Capital - - - $1,500,000 Surplus and profits (earned) 1,500,000 Deposits over - - 20,000,000 OFFICERS L. A. GODDARD, President FRANK I. PACKARD, Asst Cashier JOHN R. LINDGREN, Vice-President C. EDWARD CARLSON, Asst. Cashier HENRY A. HAUGAN, Vice-President SAMUEL E. KNECHT, Secretary HENRY S. HENSCHEN, Cashier WILLIAM C. MILLER, Asst. Secretary			
YOUR CHICAGO BUSINESS RESPECTFULLY INVITED			
			
Jbk, IN CINCINNATI With Resources of TWENTY-ONE MILLION DOLLARS And every facility for the satisfactory handling of Bank Accounts CORRESPONDENCE INVITED			
Leadership of Senator Aldrich Soundly Denounced
currency reformers should strive for is to take their cause wholly out of the hands of Nelson W. Aldrich.
If this seems a hard saying, let any one who dissents from it calmly weigh the facts. Let him consider what sort of influences in politics those are with which Aldrich has now inextricably tied himself up. His name is to-day, throughout the land, the synonym for grasping and corrupt legislation. His course on the tariff has made what was before strong suspicion turn into positive conviction.
The whole country has seen him standing athwart reasonable tariff revision, antagonizing and eviscerating the best features of the hoflse bill, rallying to his support the worst men in public life and repelling the best, driving one-sixth of his party in the senate into open revolt, and throughout making himself the attorney for selfish and unscrupulous interests. The men are known who have “seen Aldrich” and got him to arrange the law so as to put money in their pockets, and then gone away and boasted of it.
We do not charge him with corruption, but he has been the willing servant of unscrupulous and corrupt men and corporations. This fact is known of all men; and there can be no mistaking the effect if Aldrich were to come forward next December as the sponsor and framer of bills for currency reform. The instant outcry would be: “What private interest is he serving now ? What money-making scheme for whom lies behind this bill of his?” Under any auspices, a measure for the reform of our currency laws would have a hard time of it getting through congress next winter; with Aldrich to father it, defeat would be certain in advance.
The Evening Post is fully of the mind of those bankers and business men and economists who regard the need of setting our financial house in order as urgent. The shameful experience of 1907, when there was practically a suspension of payments throughout the United States, largely owing to our system of banking and currency, ought never to be repeated. Legislation should
and is to press the matter upon congress either in the regular session or at a special session which, it is rumored, may be called in the autumn of next year. In any event, the great measure is to be under the particular charge of Senator' Aldrich.
His friends have known for some time that it was his ambition to׳ round out his political career by affixing his name to a comprehensive financial bill that should cure our currency and monetary ills for all time, and cause the Rhode Island senator to be looked upon by coming generations with something of the admiration and awe that Englishmen cherish for Sir Robert Peel.
With such an ambition we cannot avoid having a certain sympathy, but truth compels the statement that Senator Aldrich can never realize it. After what has happened in the sight of all men during the past four months, it would be madness for currency reformers to pin their hopes to this man. Any bill identified with his name would be politically damned from the moment of its introduction.
We do not like to say this, but we believe it to be the fact. Senator Aldrich’s ability and skill we freely admit. His desire to put our financial system upon a sound footing may be perfectly unselfish and statesmanlike. Yet he ought to be told plainly, as ought those who are working with him and hoping for great currency reforms under his leadership, that his reputation and the things he now stands for in the public mind are such that any financial measure he advocates will be from the first violently suspected, will be powerfully attacked, and will be defeated.
Senator Aldrich has now made himself an incubus which will crush into failure even honest and needed legislation. The first reform which
HORNBLOWER & WEEKS
0Bankers and 5Brokers
Members of New York and Boston Stock Exchanges EDWARD CLIFFORD, Resident Manager 3rd FLOOR, 152 MONROE 3T.	- CHICAGO
Philadelphia, August 25.—The Philadelphia North American of this city, a powerful inde: pendent newspaper, has joined the New York Evening Post in its campaign to dispossess Senator Aldrich of leadership as the head of the monetary commission, appointed, and largely named by him, for the purpose of giving the country a new banking and currency system. Under the general heading of “The Aldrich Incubus” both papers assail his self assumed position.
The North American says that the New York Evening Post is one of the few newspapers which occupy and dominate a distinctive field in American journalism. The excellence of some of its editorial cults may be disputed. The punctilious scholarship of its literary and other reviews that endears it to a certain class may seem better adapted to a monthly or quarterly review than to the functions of a daily newspaper.
But there can be no question that, in one respect, The Evening Post holds the foremost position. It is recognized as the most respected journalistic representative of conservative capital in this country. Radicalism is abhorrent to it. It is unpurchasable. It tells the truth as it sees it concerning the trade and the speculation of New York, this country, and the world, without regard to the wishes of any stock gambling clique.
But its sympathies are wholly with the “solid” wealth of the country and its “vested rights.” It speaks, and has the right to speak, for those of “the interests” that are honest.
For these reasons, we consider the following editorial utterance, which we reprint in full, one of the most significant expressions of opinion made recently by any newspaper. This then is quoted from the Post:
It is announced that Senator Aldrich now thinks it doubtful if the bill for currency reform will be ready for introduction when congress meets in December. Yet his interest in this subject remains intense. He is to make public addresses on the important topic during the month of October in Chicago, St. Louis, and other cities,