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PAGE FOURTEEN
THE GREENBACKS
To the right, to the left, in front,
in the rear, we are beset by problems,
abuses, critical conditions, wrongs
crying for redress, victims of legis
lative injustice demanding relief. That
a President of the United States
should be blind to so many self-evi
dent conditions, deaf to so many
sounds of suffering, and should go
out of his way to strike at the Green
back currency is a fact to cause as
tonishment.
What harm is the Greenback doing
to anybody? What evil has it ever
wrought?
The approval of Lincoln gave it
life; the soldier who fought for the
Union, when Roosevelt was in the
cradle, was paid with it; the Union
armies were fed and clothed with it
when gold had run off and hid. The
Greenback saved the Government in
its hour of need, and it has done good
each day of its life ever since. If
we had five times as much of it as
now exists, the country would be
twice as well off.
Who is it that hates the Greenback?
The National Banker.
Why?
Because the National Banker would
like to have the monopoly of supply
ing the paper currency. The Govern
ment circulates $346,000,000 Green
backs; the National Banker circulates
$400,000,000 of his own notes.
The bank notes earn compound in
terest for the banker; the Greenbacks
earn no interest at all. Therefore,
they compete with the notes of the
banker. They interfere with his busi
ness. As long as they exist, he has
no absolute monopoly.
Therefore what?
The National Banker hates the
Greenback just as the Standard Oil
detests the independent companies.
For the same reason which moves the
Coal Barons, the Beef Trust and the
Tobacco Trust to wage relentless war
upon the independent dealer, the
money power demands the suppres
sion of the Greenback. If the Na
tional Bankers can destroy the Green
back, they can fill its place with
their own notes. Loaned out at law
ful interest, compounded at the us
ual periods, they will wring from the
people a yearly tribute of nearly thir
ty million dollars. In other words,
the countiy now gets Greenbacks free
of charge, whereas the bank-notes to
replace them will cost $30,000,000 per
annum. I can see how this will ben
efit the bankers; but whom else will
it benefit?
One of the strangest hallucinations
that ever entered the legislative mind
is that a banker’s note, based on na
tional credit, is good, safe, sane cur
rency, while the Government’s own
note, based on national credit, is un
safe, unsound and not to be tolerat
ed. The first legislators who sa
the thing that way were probably
hired to do it. The example having
been set, ignorance, prejudice and self
interest helped to swell the numbers
of the converts, until now the men
who cling to the belief that a Gov
ernment note, issued by the Govern
ment itself, would be as good as that
which it authorizes the banker to is
sue, are in a helpless minority.
If the Government buys paper, sets
WATSON’S WEEKLY JEFFERSONIAN.
up a press, stamps a note and issues
it as currency the banker howls “Rag
Money! ’ ’ The subsidized editor takes
up the dismal refrain, the limber
kneed politician tunes his mouth to
the echo, the wise men of the acad
emy quit gerund-grinding to talk
finance, and with one accord the or
thodox repeat the jeer of “Rag
Money,“Rag Baby,” and “Dis
honest Dollar,” until the Govern
ment lets the banker take the pa
per, the press, the stamp, and issue
the notes as his own! Then it is all
right. The editor’s soul is soothed;
the politician purrs with satisfaction,
the savant of the academy returns
to his Greeks and Romans. All is
well. The bankers issue their cur
rency, grow fat on usury, and the
principles of high finance are vindi
cated. The paper currency of the
Government is a “Rag Baby”; the
paper money of the National Bank
er is “Sound Money.”
So, we let the bankers exploit a
governmental function to their im
mense profit, when the Government
could use the function itself, to the
injury of nobody, and to the vast
benefit of the people at large. But if
the Government did this thing, the Na
tional Banker would lose his special
privilege, his unjust advantage, his
huge gains.
Hence, he not only refuses to per
mit the Government to supply the
country with any more Greenbacks,
but he demands the destruction of
those already outstanding. I regret
to see President Roosevelt lending
himself to this wicked proposition.
* Cleveland, during the whole time
he was in office, was hostile to the
Greenbacks and recommended that
they be destroyed. Nobody was sur
prised at this. In fact, Cleveland
had exhausted the capacity of hon
est men to be surprised.
But the country hoped for better
things from Mr. Roosevelt. He wai
thought to be too strong a man to be
the blind tool of the National Bank
ers.
The Greenback is hurting nobody,
is doing great good; its only enemy
is the National Banker, whose mo
tive is sordidly selfish. Let the
Greenback alone!
If the President will take the trou
ble to study for himself the finan
cial statements issued by his own
subordinates, he will discover a state
of things which would otherwise be
incredible. x
He will find that the bankers are
drawing compound interest on more
money than there is in existence!
He will find that they reap usurious
revenues from three times as much
money as there is in actual circula
tion!
He will find that they have drawn
interest upon seven times as much
money as they actually have!
Under the law of its birth, the
Greenback is real money. Like gold
and silver, it comes direct from the
Government to the people. If you
burn it, and do not supply its place,
you contract the currency at a time
when such contraction means nation
al disaster. If you burn the Green
back, and allow the National Bank
er to supply its place with his own
notes, then you rob the people of
thirty million dollars annually and
give the spoils to the banker!
He already earns about $50,000,-
000 per year on his special privilege
of issuing currency.
Isn’t that enough?
He already enjoys the use of one
hundred million dollars of the tax
money which other people pay into
the treasury; and he fattens on the
luxury of getting this money free of
interest and of lending it out at com
pound interest to the “other peo
ple. ’ ’
Isn’t that enough?
And he has filled the channels of
trade with his “lines of credit,” his
loans of money which has no exist
ence save in the confidence of his
dupes, until his yearly income from
fictitious money is half as great as
the entire revenues of the Govern
ment!
Isn’t that enough?
The Greenback is the barrier which
stands between the National Banker
and absolute financial despotism.
Let it alone!
PUBLIC OWNERSHIP OF RAIL
WAYS IN EUROPE.
VII. France.
(For The Public.)
In France the railway situation
has in certain respects a similiarity
to that of the United -States. The
greater part of the railways are in
private hands, and through combina
tions, not unknown to American
railway finance, the bulk of the pri
vate roads are owned by six large
companies, which have fully as com
plete a monopoly in the sections of
the country where they operate as
any American railway company has
at any time had. However, the gov
ernment has from time to time taken
measures to acquire the railway sys
tem, or parts of it, and this has
greatly increased the willingness of
the companies to give good service
for reasonable price. The passen
ger accommodations of the French
railways are admitted to be inferior
to those of Germany and the Scan
dinavian countries, another example
of the principle that private compa
nies holding railway monopolies will
not keep up to the highest possible
standard unless forced to do so. One
of the railway companies in France
does give comparatively good ser
vice, but the charges are higher than
on the State railways in most Euro
pean countries.
In 1900 the Frtench government
owned 1,800 miles of railway, and
private corporations owned 24,970
miles. Os the latter mileage, 21,000
miles come on the six large compa
nies.
The ticket rates in France were
until 1892 notably high, except on
the state railways, which in 1881
adopted a cheaper rate, with pro
portionately lessening fares for long
distances. The State railways also
at that time introduced the system
of forty per cent reduction on re
turn tickets when the return trip was
made within a limited period. As
mentioned, it took the private com
panies another eleven years to be
come ready for reduction. The re
duction, however, is not so great as
to make the fares as low as on the
Belgian lines. At present the charges
are:
First-class—3.6 cents per mile.
Second-class —2.4 cents per mile.
Third-class —1.6 cents per mile.
A comparison between the French
and German railroads affords the
best comparison between government
operated and privately managed rail
roads. Here are two neighboring
countries, of comparatively the same
size, resources and conditions. If
the accommodations of travel, the
safety, and even the rates, as will
be the case when the newly adopted
German rate tariff shall be in force,
are superior in the one country to
the same things in the other, what is
the cause if not the system of man
agement?
Vni. Austria-Hungary.
Austria has passed through the ex
periences which we have been and
are now facing in this country. In
the first place, she granted bounties
to the pioneer railroads to build their
first lines. Later she found that
these same roads charged exorbitant
rates, and tried what we are not try
ing—railroad control. Finally, she
passed through the experience we
have as yet to meet. She acquired
part of the railway system, and is
now constantly acquiring more. How
ever, her experience has not been
satisfactory, for when acquiring the
private roads, many of them were
in such a state as to immediately re
quire the spending of enormous sums
in order to bring them up to the
necessary working standard, exactly
the same as would be the case with
many American roads which are more
defective than is generally supposed.
In 1880 the governments of Au
stria and Hungary, which have each
their own state railway system, com
menced to take an active interest in
railway matters, and their railway
systems have since then greatly in
creased. At the end of 1901 the
total railway mileage of the two
countries was 24,680 miles, 7,200
miles being Austrian state railways,
and nearly 5,000 miles Hungarian
government roads. Since then sev
eral systems have passed into the
hands of the government, the last
occasion being the first of January of
this year, when a system of more
than 1,000 miles in length was taken
over by the government. Having
had great difficulties to encounter,
due to the deterioration of many of
the private systems acquired, the
Austrian state railroads have not
shown as good financial results as
some other state railway systems, but
they are nevertheless not only self
supporting, but pay on an average
2.5 per cent interest on the capital
expended. The Hungarian state roads
pay 3.5 per cent.
The system of charging fares on
the Austrian as well as the Hunga
rian state railways is a very inter
esting one. It is known as the zone
tariff system, but is different for the
two countries. The distances are di
vided up into zones, within which
the fares are uniform, the zones be
ing from six to sixteen miles long.
The average fares are:
First-class —2.5 ceuts per mile.
Second-class—l.7s cents per mile.
Third-class —0.85 cents per mile.
This system went into effect in
June, 1890, and its possibilities have