[Volume XXVII
THE CHICAGO BANKER
14
Editoria! Comment
countries to the establishment of a new system for this country.
Senator Aldrich has been preparing himself for a speaking tour, and the west is to be his stamping ground. The two will know more of and, perhaps, like each other after it is over. The central bank plan is very dear to the senatorial heart, even if not any too popular with the common people. In Washington it is not believed that the central bank idea is acceptable to more than one-half of the banks. There probably will be no attempt made to enact general financial legislation at the coming session of congress, except that it will be necessary to enact legislation which will equalize the tax on circulation which is based on bonds in such a way as to put the bonds which bear a higher rate of- interest than 2 per cent on a parity with the twos. Another matter which will come up will be the postal savings bank system. Strong efforts will be made to get a law passed for a postal savings bank system.
Senators and representatives who are hostile to the postal savings bank will take refuge behind the plea that the matter should be put over until the monetary commission report is at hand. This will mean delay and temporization, and in some fashion or other the proposed establishment of postal savings banks will be shifted along into the future.
In the coming session there will be a lot of talk about the lobbies and corridors about changing the banking and currency system, but it will all be preliminary to actually taking the subject up. It will probably be determined this winter whether an extra session is to be called next fall. Senator Aldrich wants one, but Speaker Cannon is showing signs of being apathetic, and there are plenty of indications that the central bank issue, the pet plan of Senator Aldrich, is going to encounter all sorts of opposition. We may look for the livest kind of work if the postal bank plan gets on the floor. Bankers are in no mood to let it go to passage without putting up a fight. Guaranty likely will remain a state issue only for some years. But let us by all means hear from Mr. Aldrich on the stump.
George Woodruff
George Woodruff of Joliet was not at Decatur but at or near Peking, China, this week. In a letter he says “I find the Chinks are back numbers. Been in the banking business since 2,000 b. c. and haven’t adopted the group system as yet. Report this to Edens and the bunch.”
Richard T. Forbes
President R. T. Forbes of the Drovers has been named for treasurer of the big South Shore Country Club. At present he is closing a term on the board of governors.
V-
The Farmers and Merchants State Bank, Tali-hina, Okla., has been incorporated, with a capital of $10,000.
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all must decide. Mr. Reynolds says the men favoring the central bank are not trying to establish such a bank as has been described in some of the papers. In speaking of this matter recently he said:
“We do not expect everybody to agree with us, and, indeed, we are glad to see honest differences, for the discussion which results from these differences of opinion is bound to have an educating influence on the participants, as well as the public at large, and in this way all this discussion will no doubt be highly beneficial; for, personally, I believe that the more anyone studies the situation with an open mind the more certain they are to turn toward a central bank as the best means of correcting our present situation. I do not believe in anything revolutionary, and the plan I have suggested would not contemplate making a single change in the functions of the banks now in existence, other than taking away the deposits of the government and providing, through and in the central bank, a reserve depository for the national banks in the three central-reserve cities of New York, Chicago and St. Louis.”
So long as Mr. Reynolds* Mr. Roberts and others favoring the central bank idea approach the matter in this spirit, and Mr. Yates and others oppose it in fairness, the discussion will remain highly educational and interesting. Sensationalists in journalism will continue to have their fling, but bankers will study the merits of the question, for to them the interest is vital. Our columns are open to all, whether they favor or oppose, and communications will be welcomed.
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The Aldrich Educational Movement
The whole country awaits with all patience at command the appearance of Nelson W. Aldrich upon the lecture platform in his great currency and banking uplift movement. Senator Aldrich, with Prof. P. Piatt Andrew, who will be the next director of the mint, is in Europe gathering up some odds and ends of information about the operation of the banking and currency systems there. With his return, the commission will have in its hands about all the information it needs with respect to the operation of the financial systems of other nations, and it will be in a position to formulate its report in which it is expected to apply such knowledge as it has gained concerning the workings of the monetary system in other
Vagaries of the News
Readers of the daily papers cannot have failed to, at times, note the peculiar sequences of events. When the Wisconsin committee of able bankers decided to go to Oklahoma to study the guaranty question, “where it was in successful operation,” they arrived just in time to witness the effects of the big Oklahoma City failure and they properly were impressed. They left for home and on the way prepared their “opinions” for publication saying that good, old fashioned Wisconsin banking was quite good enough for them. Imagine their surprise to read in the same papers which commended their views, the news from Mineral Point where the trusting depositors had been robbed by a priestly visaged banker, despite inspection.
New York papers came out one morning during the week with a column interview with Morse in which that gentleman told of “making” nearly eight million dollars in a few months and how he was not going back into the banking business because “as banking is now conducted there is no money in it.” In the very papers in which this rot appeared, on another page, was recorded the opinion of the court of appeals, confirming the Morse sentence of fifteen years in the pen, and that very night he slept, or, tried to sleep, in the Tombs.
While the Chicago papers were flying West with marked pages, containing grandiloquent interviews with Mr. Crane, hoping to catch the outgoing steamer, that embryo diplomat was rushing toward his Waterloo at Washington.
“Dear Beaver, don’t talk” was the famous telegram sent to Gen. Beaver by M. S. Quay, after that distinguished soldier had been put at the head of the Quay ticket for governor of Pennsylvania. Crane only is another case of Beaver. As Bob Burdette has said, “He talked without fatigue.” These random comments are intended only to warn everyone to think well before speaking. The Wisconsin committee, Mr. Morse and Mr. Crane, all would be happier today had they kept their own counsel for a reasonable time.
Unfairness is Weakness
Certain eastern publications have assailed the central bank idea in a most unfair way, not with argument, but as a dangerous political propaganda by Cannon, Aldrich and Wall Street. This creates only prejudice and is quite unfair. It does not produce convictions based upon information. Mr. Yates, of Omaha, in last week’s Chicago Banker is an example of how it should be done. Mr. Reynolds’ two addresses at Waterloo and at the A. B. A. convention are models on the other side of the question. Mr. Roberts from the very first has used only legitimate arguments. The question is of the very nature and kind which only can be advanced or opposed by fair, square, and able argument. Abusive epithet, as in politics, cannot affect the forces which after