[Volume XXVII
THE CHICAGO BANKER
14
Editorial Comment
He of the Star Chamber set in Washington. He is not popular with the public and is not deceived upon that matter. He will grow if his mission grows, or, he will fall with it, and drag it down. The so-called Aldrich commission has been engaged in a careful study in the European capitals of the financial systems of Great Britain and the principal continental powers, and a mass of data of the greatest importance to the students of finance has been collected. It is realized that none of these systems as a whole is adapted to the needs of the United States, because of the peculiar conditions which exists in' this country, but in most of them are found some features that may be of value as a foundation for the projected new American plan. Attention will be directed to defects of the existing system.
Though nominally created with the purpose of dealing only with the subject of currency and the bond issues on which the latter is based in large part, the commission has enlarged its scope so as to include the national banking system, and it is believed that even the state banks will be dealt with in the forthcoming report. The projected great central bank will be fully exploited, for there is reason to believe that even in banking circles considerable misapprehension exists as to the functions of this institution.
The suggested corrected measure, looking to the creation of branches of the central bank, has only strengthened the fear of the existing banks that the United States government is to enter the field of competition with them. On this subject many bankers and the majority of the plain people will continue skeptical until converted.
MacVeagh and the Central Bank
It is to be expected that politicians and theorists will venture where statesmen and practical bankers fear to tread. President Taft, Mr. Reynolds, Mr. Roberts, Senator Aldrich, no doubt reached their conclusions favoring the central bank idea after long, careful study. Now comes Secretary McVeagh, who asserts that the administration is not committed to any change in our currency system involving the establishment of a central bank.
He says “no hasty action is contemplated. The administration feels that the subject is too complicated and too difficult to admit of headlong treatment.”
The secretary is wise and timely in his statement and all who oppose hasty action will see the wisdom of his position. Centralization in government is not liked■ by the masses, however pleasing it may be to those in power.
The public will like the MacVeagh pledge that we are to have no hasty action nor any resumption of administration politics, of which the whole business public grew so tired under a former president. Let the ablest men in the country come to an agreement, then let the public be educated up to it. This is . the right, the lasting way of doing it.
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in this light. In the reading of his Salt Lake sermon his Winona speech will be softened, somewhat, and the man and chief executive will be better understood.
Solution of the Monetary Issue
Just as the business world has been benefited by the settling of the tariff question so will the banking and commercial world be endlessly benefited by the speedy settlement of the whole currency and banking question. The Bank of England has succeeded because it closed the question in the real English fashion. In France and Germany it was much the same. Our national bank act. while admittedly imperfect, settled matters financial at a very unsettled period in our national existence. This can happen again. It was done in war times for the whole republic and gain it will be done upon these lines or it should fail on passage.
No faction, political or financial, can have any right to exploit the nation. Benefits thus secured will be but temporary. The monetary issue should be settled for all the people and for all time. Of necessity, while there is a general realization of the necessity of legislation on this subject, there is wide difference of opinion. Speaker Cannon believes that a mere extension of the present law, with perhaps a few amendments in details, will suffice; President Taft looks with favor upon the proposition to create a great central bank, and there are all sorts of intermediate schemes. Probably that which commands the greatest support will be based upon the recommendations of the monetary commission, which has been quietly but effectively at work for more than a year gathering the material for the construction of the actual legislation. A campaign of education is about to begin, for it is fully understood by Senator Aldrich, who heads the commission, and by the students of finance, that it will be difficult to arouse the interest of the mass of the people in the details of this rather abstruse subject, and that only by general agitation can the national legislature be brought to the point of action. If it required ten years to bring about a revision of the tariff, certainly a period of less than five years is none too long to perfect and enact legislation on a subject so complex and important as is involved in a genera! revision of the entire financial system of the republic. It will require some time to get used to Aldrich on the stump.
Taft at the Tabernacle
We believe that the good Christians who filed objections to the appearance of the president in the Mormon tabernacle were simply over jealous. Like many enthusiasts, they magnified an unimportant detail to the proportions of an essential. President Taft is the only judge of the proprieties on such an occasion as he the only judge of what he may say in such a place or elsewhere on the tariff or on the postal banks. He is speaking for himself.
Mr. Taft’s address in the big Mormon temple is the best of the series thus far. His subject was well chosen and had been a part of his life for years. It was the real Taft speaking when he said: “We Anglo-Saxons are, we admit, a great race. We have accomplished wonders in hammering out against odds that seemed insurmountable the principles of civil liberty and popular government and making them practical and showing to the world their benefits. But in so doing and in the course of our life, it seems to me, we have ignored some things that our fellows of southern climes have studied and made much of; and that is the forms of speech and the methods of everyday treatment between themselves and others. At first that seems superficial to us, who prefer ‘no’ and ‘yes’ and abrupt methods and communications in the shortest and curt-est sentences, but my friends, we have much to learn from people of that kind of courtesy an 1 politeness.” In this paragraph are mentioned the chief differences between the banker and the money lender. The difference between the courteous “soft answer,” of which Mr. Taft spoke, and the curt offensive “no” of the mere money broker. Then the big, fine natural chief executive went on to say:
“The truth is, my friends, this matter of hatred and resentment which accompany the attributing of a bad motive to those who differ from you is a waste of nervous strength, of time, of worry, without accomplishing one single good thing. I don’t know how it has been with you, but it has happened time and time again with me that some man has done soniething that I did not like, that I thought had a personal bearing, and that I have said in my heart: ‘Times will change and I will get even with that gentleman.’ I don’t profess to be free from those feelings at all. But it frequently has happened, I may say generally, that the time did come when I could get even with that man and when that time came it seemed to me that I would demean myself and that it would show me no man at all if I took advantage. And so, my friends, what I am urging is less acrimony in public discussion—more charity with respect to each other as to what moves each man to do what he does and not to charge dishonesty and corruption until you have a real reason for doing so.”
This blending of Christianity, good sense, good morals and charity is the real Mr. Taft. We could wish he oftener would show himself