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PAGE EIGHT THE JEFFERSONIAN PUBLISHED BY THOS. E. WATSON and J. D. WATSON Editon and Proprietors Trmplk Court Building, Atlanta, Ga. SUBSCRIPTION PRICE: - - SI.OO PER YEAR Advertising Rates Furnished on Application. Enttrrd at Pttnfict, Atlanta, Ga., January 11, IQO7, ai ttctnd tian mall matttr ATLANTA, GA., THURSDAY, DECEMBER 19, 1907 A National Banker Butts In. Elsewhere will be found a letter from our good friend, Mr. Reynolds, of Rome, Ga. It was very courteous of Mr. Reynolds to offer his communication to the Jeffersonian, and it gives us pleasure to make room for it. If we are not mistaken, it was Mr. Reynolds who undertook, in the New York “Watson’s” to refute the statement that the Panic of 1893 was a bank-made affair. Our recollection, moreover, is that so much evidence was pro duced by Mr. W. S. Morgan, of Arkansas, to prove that the Panic of 1893 was bank-made, that Mr. Reynolds retired from the controver sy. In his present effort to overthrow the state ment that the National banks pay practically no tax, Mr. Reynolds overlooks several im portant facts. (1) The Act of Congress of 1900 cut down the tax on circulation one-half, and therefore his calculation is built on a foundation that has been materially changed. (2) He does not, as I did, take into consid eration all of the expenses incident to the Na tional Banking System. (3) The present annual revenue to the Gov ernment on National bank circulation is, in round numbers, only two million dollars, Sure ly Mr. Reynolds does not think that this piti ful sum more than covers the cost of furnish ing house-room for the Currency Bureau, safe ty vaults for the storage of the bonds ; furnaces for the “burning to ashes” of “worn and muti lated notes”; expensive office furniture, books of account, stationery, etc.; the cost of dies and plates for the fine engraving which has to be done on the notes; the fire-proof vaults re quired by law for the safe keeping of the dies and plates, etc., etc. (4) Mr. Reynolds takes it for granted that the working expenses of the Currency Bureau represent the cost to the Government of the National Banking System. By no means. Let Mr. Reynolds turn to the Act of 1864 creating these banks and he will be surprised to see how much of the work and the expense of the Currency Bureau is thrown upon the Treasur er’s Office —thus greatly increasing the cost of that department. Mr. Reynolds takes the position that the Government has made so much money out of the national banks that it could afford to pay every dollar that depositors lost, and still have “a net profit of $55,340,061.” All things considered, I take this statement to be one of the most remarkable that’ ever came under my eyes, or into my ears. The Government has actually made “net profits” off these poor, down-trodden national bankers, and therefore ought to make good their defalcations! Lord! have mercy on us. What are the facts—facts which reveal a nation’s shame, a nation’s loss, a nation’s slav ery to a favored class? The Government had issued its own notes, as full legal tender money, because the war expenses were more than a million dollars a day, and the banks had suspended Specie pay mente. Ne gold and silver were to be had. THE JEFFERSONIAN. Treasury notes had to be issued to save the Government from absolute financial starvation. The treasury notes thus issued never for one moment sank below par. Why should they,- when a paper dollar would do for its owner every blessed thing that a coin dollar would do? The full legal tender notes of the first issue, $50,000,000, remained the full equal of gold and silver dollars until the bankers went to Wash ington and got Congress to say that the notes should not be legal tender for Custom house duties and for interest on the bonds. Then, indeed, the paper notes sank under this foul blow, until it took three of the Govern ment’s notes to equal a silver or gold dollar. How much did that conduct of the bankers cost the Government and the people? It cost them the full extent of the deprecia tion of the paper money. Who reaped the “net profits”? The bankers, who gathered in the depreciated currency, swapped it, dollar for dollar, for long-term bonds, and then got Congress to declare that their bonds must be paid in coin. In other words, the Government was influ enced to sell bonds for one kind of money and to redeem them in another. Paper was good enough when the bankers were buying the bonds, but not good enough when pay-day came. Who scooped the “net profits” on that grand series of deals in bonds? The banker did it. How much did the Government and the people lose? The full amount of the difference between the depreciated currency in which the bonds were bought and the coin in which they were paid. And the sum total of that colossal loot is so enormous that the mere tables of figures make no adequate impression on the average mind. But when the poor human underdogs look up at the swollen fortunes of some of our Northern and Eastern money-kings, wondering how on earth some men accumulated such incredible wealth, let them be told of the awful crimes that were committed in the name of Finance during and after the Civil War. There’s where this vast inequality of riches began. Who was it that compelled Hugh McCulloch and other Secretaries of the Treasury to “burn to ashes” eighteen hundrd million dollars of the paper currency of the Country? The national bankers did it. Why? To drive out of circulation the notes of the Government, to put their own paper into cir culation, to lessen the volume of real money in order that they might control it, and have the busmess world at their mercy. Who made the “net profit” in these raids against the paper money of the Government? The national bankers and other money-kings did it. And the amount of the loss to the Gov ernment and people, during all those years of falling prices, when the money was being call ed in and burnt, God only knows. It was prodigious. So frightful was the decline in values, brought about by the destruction of the cur rency, that in 1889 after the Government had paid on the public debt three and a half billions of dollars, in principal and interest, it would have required more corn, wheat and cotton, at prices then prevailing, to have paid off the remainder of the public debt than it would have required to pay off the whole debt at the prices which prevailed in 1866. Who brought on the Panic of 1893? The national bankers. For what purpose? To compel Congress to make gold the mon ey of final redemption, so that they could aug ment their own power and profit. Who forced those bonds from Cleveland’s second administration? Who pocketed the “net prefits” on that disgraceful deal? Who brought on the panic of 1907? Who forced bonds from the Roosevelt administration? Who is scooping the “net profits” on 3 per cent treasury notes which they buy without further cost than an entry on their books? Who is it that gets compound interest on from ten to thirty dollars more money than is invested in their business? Who is it that gets the use of $250,000,000 of the Govern ment’s funds without a cent of interest? Who is it that collects interest on his bonds in advance, and thus has both principal and interest loaned out at interest AT THE SAME TIME? Who is it that pays no tax and thus con tributes nothing to the Government whose favors enrich him ? Who is it that not only has the use of the Government’s credit in his busi ness, but has the Government’s cash also? POOR, DOWN-TRODDEN NATIONAL BANKER!!! * * The Clearing House Certificate. Certain eminent financiers of New York, engaged in the pleasant pastime of using the credit of the Government for their own profit, will wake up one fine morning and find them selves unable to pay their debts. Instead of going out of business, as bank rupts usually do, these eminent financiers agreed among themselves that they would put forth a written statement of their inability to pay their debts, and would compel 85,000,- 000 people to use these badges of dishonor AS MONEY. And they have done it! A Clearing House Certificate (‘is nothing more, than a confession that the bankers issu ing them are unwilling, or unable, to pay their debts. Ou these statements that they are bank rupt, they collect interest, just as though these badges of dishonor were good money. This being so, consider for a moment what these national bankers are doing. First, they draw interest on the money in vested in the bonds —paying no tax. Second, they draw interest on the same mon ey, represented in the notes issued to them by the Government —paying, practically, no tax. Third, they inflate their loans, checks, and drafts until they draw interest on from ten to thirty times as much money as they have in vested. Fourth, when pay-day comes, and they find it an impossibility to meet their honest obliga tions, they issue a statement to that effect, call it a Clearing House Certificate, and force it in to circulation as money. Thus they turn bankruptcy into a huge prof it, and get interest upon a confession of fail ure. Yet these are the gentlemen who wanted Honest Dollars! These are the gentlemen who railed against silver dollars because the metal in the coin was only worth fifty cents. These are the fellows who jeered at Green backs, and said that these treasury notes con stituted the dangerous feature of our financial system. These are the fellows who could lay their tongues to no words too bitter and abusive for the Farmers’ Alliance and the Labor Un ions, when those wealth-producers implored the Government to supply the country with a larger volume of real money. And now look at the situation which they have made! * Business demoralized, loans stopped, colled tions at a standstill, confidence gone, the couni try merchant and the farmer in distress an/ fearful of next spring, depositors clamoring f 'A what is theirs and being told they can’t hr 4 it, nasty little clearing house certificates ' \ bauching the currency, and tempting the co terfeiter, Six thousand national bankers he ing up the entire nation and shearing it an shepherd would his sheep. I; These are the men whose infernal greed < selfishness could not be content with the fin < eial system fixed by our forefathers. Tj