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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