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PAGE EIGHT THE JEFFERSONIAN PUBLISHED BY THOS. E. WATSON and J. D. WATSON Editors and Proprietors Temple Court Building, Atlanta, Ga. SUBSCRIPTION PRICE: - - SI.OO PER YEAR Advertising Rates Furnished on Application. Entered at Petteffice, Atlanta, Ga., January 11, IQO7, at second clan mail matter ATLANTA, GA., THURSDAY, DECEMBER 12, 1907 Lawlessness in High Places. Certain well-meaning readers of the Jeffer sonian who are not aware of the fact that Mr. Watson himself is a Director and part owner of a state bank, appear to have taken up the notion that he is prejudiced against banks. Not at all. Banks of loans and discounts well managed, are of immense benefit to a com munity. They multiply -capital, stimulate en terprise and cut the time-price system which is risky for the merchant and ruinous to his customers. But the Jeffersonian is against wrong-doing anywhere and everywhere. This thing of re fusing to pay a depositor his money when he needs it and calls for it in the customary way, heats the old man’s blood. What! A poor man puts his savings into a bank, to have it where he can check it out as he needs it, and then, when the larder is empty, or the hearth cold, to have his check turned down, his demand for his own money refused and a nasty little Clearing House Cer tificate forced into his hands 1 IT’S A BURNING SHAME. More than that, IT IS A CRIME. The money of depositors is not the property of the bank. What right have I, as a banker, to keep what isn’t mine? Does being a banker give me the right to take away from my neighbor that which is his, without his consent? Have I got the right to say to Smith and Jones and Brown, “It is true that you trusted me with your money, and it is true that I still have it in my hands, but, if I let you have it you will hoard it, therefore I will keep it AND HOARD IT MYSELF”? To say that such a banker ought to be giv en a nice new suit of striped clothes, and put to work in the penitentiary, is to state the case with great moderation. The bankers who have taken this lawless course contend that they are acting from patri otic motives; they are holding money which does not belong to them to stave off a panic. But the very line of conduct which they have adopted is the best possible method that could have been adopted to destroy all confi dence. How can you ever again trust your money to one of these bankers who refused to let you have your own money when you most needed it? Flow can you ever again put any confidence in a banking system which has to beg the Gov ernors of States to declare a legal holiday, so that no legal demand can be made for money which the banks have no legal right to keep? These nasty little Clearing House Certifi cates are the badges of a nation’s shame. They are the written proof of national bank infamy. They are the highest and best evidence of the slavish submission of a brave, intelligent people to the organized rascality which uses the political machinery of both the old parties to plunder the inert, unorganized masses. And the President in his message to the Six tieth session of our corporation agents recom mends that both these old parties be allowed to put their hands into the national treasury and take out enough of the money of the vic tims to pay the Campaign expenses! WAWON 1 ® W®BKLY JBFFBRIUWA'K. Z Good God! Wouldn’t it be a sight for gods and men to see that Indiana gambler, Tom Taggart, help ing himself to public money to pay the expens es of the Democratic camp-followers? Wouldn’t it be an inspiring spectacle to see the Tammany crowd squatted around the naional treasury, helping themselves to pot tage ? Wouldn’t it be glorious to see the Repub lican managers take off their coats and begin to lift out sacks of dough for the stand-pat ters ? Thus the system which now sucks up all the surplus wealth of the country for the benefit of the Privileged Few, is. to be perpetuated by allowing the two parties which are committed to the system to maintain themselves, forever, at public expense. Os course there is no constitutional author ity by which Congress can do anything of the kind, but who cares for the Constitution? What’s a little thing like that, between two such good friends as the two old parties? *5 H H A Progressive Postmaster General. The country will be gratified to learn that Post-Master General Meyer intends to in troduce a number of improvements which will modernize our antiquated Postoffice Depart ment. In many respects we are the foremost peo ple on earth; in many others, we are the hind most. In applied science, in improved agri culture. 111 all kinds of mechanical pursuits, in muting and manufactures—we are well up to the very best standards which civilization can boast. In many things we excel all other nations. Yet, it is an astonishing thing to consider in how many ways we have allowed special privilege to fasten its own vested in tersts upon our system of Government, and thus clogged our own advancement. Several generations ago it may have been a desirable thing to gran the franchises which are now exploited by such corporations as the Express Companies—one of which recently divided twenty-four million dollars in net prof its among its few stockholdrs —a 1 dividend of 200 per cent. But it will readily be seen that such charters are no longer to be toler ated. The Postal Department should be en larged. just as it has been in Europe, until the Government applies to the transportation of small parcels the same principles and privi leges which are extended to letters and news papers. Again, we are far behind the world in allow ing the telephone companies and the telegraph companies to monopolize the transmission of messages. In Europe, it is recognized that messages sent by the telephone and telegraph are practically the same as communications sent through the mails. When one cannot wait for a letter to go and a reply to come, one tele phones. or telegraphs. Consequently, the very purpose for which the Postoffice System is es tablished requires that the patrons of the of fice should have the privilege of communicat ing by wire, or over the telephone, with their correspondents, when the time is too short for communication by card or letter. Again, we are far behind the world in the matter of Savings Banks. It is universally recognized that there should be some place where the savings of the people can be safe ly deposited. It is not wise to hoard these sums in private houses. The money of a peo ple should be placed where it is most acces sible, not only to the owner, but to the busi ness world. To hide it away in private places is to lel ire it from circulation, and to defeat the purpose for which it was created. Every diamond, every pearl, every ruby on earth might be hidden away in a cavern, and the ex istence of the cavern become a lost secret- — yet the world would not miss the loss of all that useless treasure. It ministers to pride and vanity, but it answers no indispensable need of the human race. Moi :y, on the contra ry, is made to circulate; the? very purpose of its being is that it shall be a worker; its duty is to move and keep moving, circulating like the life-blood in one’s body. Under our pres ent system, we put our cash in bank, and on the day that we most need it we cannot get it. The wife may wring her hands because th’e rent is due and the landlord is insistent; the hungry child may cry for food; winter may be coming and there is no cash with which to buy fuel; installments become due; fixed charges become due; taxes become due; the butcher’s bill knocks at the door; and the banker who has the wage-earner’s cash tells him that he cannot get it. Instead of his own money, to which he is enti tled in morals and law, the depositor must accept a nasty little Clearing Blouse Certifi cate. With this paper credit, which is issued 011 another paper credit, which in turn was issued upon still another—he may or may not be able to keep starvation from his door and a roof over the head of his family. Shame upon these Clearing House Certificates! They are a disgrace to our financial system and a crime against the depositor. It must be perfectly apparent, therefore, that we need a system of banks of deposit which will absolutely guarantee to the depositor that he can have what is his whenever he needs it. No ocher system will fill this want but the Postal Savings Banks. Think of the advant ages. First, it gives to every citizen a place to put his surplus money, whether that sur plus be laige or small —which is just as strong as the Government itself. In the second place, this savings bank will be as convenient as the postoffice. In the third place, it will check that ruinous concentration of money in the great financial centers, and will inaugurate a new system of distribution which will im mensely benefit the entire country. In the fourth place, it loosens, if it does not break, the financial despotism now exercised by the great metropolitan banks and trust companies. In the fifth place, it makes accessible to the Government, reserve funds which would tide it over in sudden emergency, without the neces sity of calling upon the metropolitan banks, or of issuing bonds. Let us hope that the Sixtieth Congress will co-operate with our public-spirited and pro gressive Post-Master General, and carry into effet some of his magnificent plans. * M H What Does It He an ? Commenting upon Judge Newman’s decis ion in the Central Railroad case, the Atlanta Journal seems to take the position that this Morganized concern has the legal right to earn dividends upon the forty odd million dollars of water whiefi Pat Calhoun’s gang and J. P. Morgan’s crowd poured into it when they stole it from the old stockholders, some years ago, If we understand the Journal correctly, it now abandons the purpose of freeing the peo ple of Georgia from the annual burden of being taxed to earn dividends upon fictitious capitalization. If this is now the position of the Journal, we should be glad to know why it has changed its tune. Last year we were told in a considerable number of very mournful numbers that this thing of burdening the public with fraudulent issues of stocks and bonds was robbery. If our memory serves us right, the aid of arithmetic was called in tp show us how much the annual robbery amounted to—just as arithmetic was called in to prove that Hoke could have been elected as easily without Pop ulist help as with it. If we were being robbed by the Central and Southern and Georgia railroads last year on watered stock, when did the robbery stop? Guyt McLendon figured it all out in a splen-