"As long as we have the present banking and currency system, we shall have panics--and no longer. Does not this alone create a state of emergency? What doubt should there be of the urgency of this legislation? Why should it take another wasteful and degrading panic to impress Congress? Why cannot 1907 suffice? There are many other things of prime importance to be secured through monetary reform, but if nothing were to be secured but emancipation from panics there would be abundant imperative reasons for immediate action by Congress." MR. MERCHANT: This statement of Secretary MacVeagh proves absolutely just what you said a moment ago, that the situation was appalling, and when you realize that this practice has been kept up ever since 1846, when the sub-treasuries were established, it is unbelievable. The Act of Aug. 5, 1846, declared it a felony to deposit public money in banks. The United States Government has been committing an economic felony ever since. It has been committing an economic crime against commerce and the laboring interests of the country ever since that Act was passed, and is doing it this very hour. The Act of Feb. 25, 1863, establishing National Banks, authorized their use as depositaries of the public money except "receipts from Customs." Forty-four years later the Act of March 4, 1907, struck out the words "except receipts from customs." By the Act of March 2, 1911, bank checks were made receivable for Customs dues, but no step has been taken by the Treasury of the United States to make them so at New York, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, New Orleans, Philadelphia, St. Louis, San Francisco and Washington, where the United States Government still has its morgues for our money. Every day the checks are presented which are sent in in accordance with the law, and the actual money is withdrawn from the channels of trade; that is, the United States Government withdraws reserve money to the full extent of every dollar that is due it. MR. LAWYER: While Mr. Manufacturer was reading what Secretary MacVeagh said, I have been wondering what the people would do if the United States Steel Corporation, the Standard Oil Co., J.P. Morgan or John D. Rockefeller, or any of the railroad companies, or any other great interest, should collect and hold in safe-deposit boxes hundreds of millions of money, just as the United States Treasury does. MR. FARMER: I'll tell you what we would do. We would blow them up mighty quick, and hang them to boot, that's what we'd do.