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PAGE TWO
Public Opinion Throughout the Union
THE FAVORITISM OF THE GOVERN
MENT.
“They will tell you that banks discrim
inate in favor of the government; that the
government exacts security for its depos
its and that it should see that every widow
and orphan has as good security as it has.
This is all buncombe; you could rake Texas
with a fine tooth comb and you could not
find a widow, orphan or anybody else that
would be fool enough to permit us to dis
criminate in their favor the same as we do
for the government. Suppose a man walked
into your bank and said: ‘Here is $50,000
I want to deposit, but I want you to buy
government bonds with it and hand me the
bonds to hold as security for my deposit,
which will remain indefinitely, and you can
have the interest on the bonds.’ Wouldn’t
you have some doubt about that fellow’s
sanity? Because if he had a thimblefull of
sense it would occur to him that if he is to
furnish the money to buy the bonds and be
the custodian of the bonds he might as well
buy them himself and draw the interest him
self.”
The above is not the idle talk of a non
thinking man, illiterate and inconsiderate, nor
is it the mouthing of a blatant demagogue
to array class against class and catch the
votes of the unwary and unthoughtful.
This is the utterance of a level-headed,
successful banker, Mr. Pondrom of Texar
kana, Texas, and was made in an address
before the last meeting of the Texas Bank
ers’ Association at Fort Worth. More than
this, it was made deliberately—even writ
ten down in his address, and no one in all
that convention rose up to deny the state
ment.
It used to be that when a farmer or la
borer challenged the right of the govern
ment to single out a class of non-producers
and actually pay them interest to use the
government’s credit for the purpose of is
suing money to loan to the people for more
interest —we say that once, when this right
■was challenged, our bankers, our congress
men and our political orators all chimed in
to show us the beneficence of this great
system. Now, the plain, unvarnished truth
is admitted by a gentleman in the banking
business, whose sanity is not questioned and
whose business success is well known.
Let us repeat his summing up: “If he
(the government) had a thimblefull of sense,
it would occur to him (the government) that
if he is to furnish the money to buy the
bonds and be the custodian of the bonds, he
might as well buy them himself and draw 7 the
interest himself.”
And yet, with a law 7 so devoid of justice
and reason, made to give a class of Manipu
lators the power to create panics or give pros
perity, according as their stock gambling in
terests demand, the last congress even went
further and allowed the banks to use the
THE JEFFERSONIAN.
watered bonds of corporations as a basis for
banknote circulation. We cannot help wonder
ing how long the patience of the American
people will endure this kind of legislation by
those who have been elected to serve them. —
National Co-Operator and Farm Journal.
WILLIAM R. HEARST AND HIS PARTY.
The Independence League or Independence
party or whatever may be its official name,
has held its national convention and nominated
a presidential ticket. This ticket will be be
fore the people in the next national election
and receive more or less votes in several
states.
Just why this should be done is beyond the
ken of an ordinary reasonable mortal. This
new 7 party is not a party of principle, organ
ized to contend for principles it believes para
mount or important, since Hon. John Temple
Graves, one of its candidates, openly avows
that for want of principles of its own it has
swiped those of the populists, and that there
fore it claims the support of the remnant of
populists that is left. When the party that
fathered these principles has steadily de
creased, as these principles were adopted by
either or both old parties, it seems absurd
for a stepfather party to enter the arena and
contend for the little that is left with the
father party. The Hearst party cannot gain
a single electoral vote. It will get practically
no votes beyond the circle of influence of the
Hearst papers. And when a party without
principles of its own, without national organ
ization or national standing, enters a national
race it is a Quixotic performance equal to the
windmill exploit of the Knight of the Sorrow
ful Figure.
The Independence party is a Hearst party.
It belongs to Mr. Hearst. It is financed by
him. It is directed by him. It is his play
thing or his instrument with which he expects
or hopes to do something he has in mind.
If Mr. Hearst should suddenly die, or if a
lunacy commission should adjudge him crazy,
have him placed in a sanitarium and appoint
some sane person to administer his estate who
would suspend the publication of his papers,
Col. John Temple Graves would forthwith re
turn to Georgia, the fellow who heads the
ticket would return to the obscurity from
which Mr. Hearst has pulled him, and the In
dependence party ticket would not receive a
single vote.
Has Mr. Hearst a purpose in setting up a
party and running a presidential ticket? Some
thing he must have in mind, even as the Span
ish knight errant enlisted Sancho Panza and
set out to rescue damsels in distress. Once it
was thought that Mr. Hearst really had some
practicable object in view, but latterly the
belief is gaining ground that he is merely a
rich man who is non compos mentis. His
last Quixotic exploit of putting out a presi
dential ticket confirms this belief.
But the ticket is out, how’ever it came to
be put out. And with Mr. Hearst’s papers
and Mr. Hearst’s dollars behind it, it will
get some votes. All that interests practical
people in this is, which party will be ben
efited by this modern Don Quixote and his po
litical windmill ?
The Hearst papers are located in New York
■■ y
Boston, Chicago and San Francisco, so it is
in and around those cities where his ticket will
get its votes. Asew 7 of John Temple’s
friends in Georgia will give him their votes
as a personal compliment, but this wil’ b<-
practicably all outside of these cities and
their suburbs. —Augusta, Ga., Herald.
BRYAN A MUDDLED MORALIZER.
In a recent issue of the Commoner Mr. Bry
an say, “Elections are public affairs and they
ought to be conducted in a public way. ” That
is correct. Again, he says that “secrecy as
to campaign methods, and as to the influences
which affect elections, is indefensible.” That
is correct also.
But Mr. Bryan, following 7 his usual bent,
could not stick long even to obviously correct
principle. “If the demand was for the pub
lication of past contributions and expendi
tures,” he said there might be some excuse
for a refusal because such a course might
cause “some embarrassment to those giving 7
and receiving.” Why should Mr. Bryan con
sider so tenderly the possible “embarrass
ment” of men who have committed what he
declares to be an “indefensible” public
wrong? If “secrecy” in such matters is
“indefensible,” why does Mr. Bryan defend
I ‘secrecy ’ ’ ?
Again, he says, l lt is not necessary that
small contributions shall be made public.”
Why not ? Morally, what is the difference be
tween the act of contributing a small sum, and
the act of contributing a big sum, for improp
er or corrupt use in elections? The average
man, clearer of mind than Mr. Bryan seems to
be when he discusses any question involving
his political fortunes, will probably not be able
to see any moral difference whatever between
the one act and the other.
The American people, without regard to par
ty lines, are anxious to get the dollar out of
polities; whether the dollar is an individual’s
or a corporation’s, is a matter of no special
concern to them. Its corrupt use is the thing
they object to, and they will not accept Mr.
Bryan’s obviously confused contention that
some men should have a right to give, while
other men should not have the right, for Amer
ican citizens believe in the doctrine of equal
ity before the law.
Nor will they subscribe to any system of
morals which is so elastic that it ’will condone
in the case of one man acts that it will con
demn in the sase of another; that is not the
American idea. On this question, at least, Mr.
Biyan seems to be somewhat of a muddled
moralizer.—Seattle Post-Intelligencer.