Seventeen Talks on the Banking Question: Between Uncle Sam and Mr. Farmer, Mr. Banker, Mr. Lawyer, Mr. Laboringman, Mr. Merchant, Mr. ManufacturerFowler, Charles N. (Charles Newell)
History
Seventeen Talks on the Banking Question: Between Uncle Sam and Mr. Farmer, Mr. Banker, Mr. Lawyer, Mr. Laboringman, Mr. Merchant, Mr. Manufacturer
Fowler, Charles N. (Charles Newell)
Banks and banking -- United States; Currency question -- United States
MR. BANKER: Now, gentlemen, let me call your attention to five
important results we have achieved in the development of this outline
of our proposed structure.
_First_: You will observe that every bank in the United States will be
completely freed from every dominating influence, because in the last
analysis it will have access to a practically inexhaustible hoard or
reserve of gold, which belongs to itself as much as to any other bank.
_Second_: You will note that every commercial zone is a perfect
and complete self-governing body. Not a single outside person has
anything whatever to do with its affairs. Every person who is in any
way connected with it, is selected by its members, even including
the Deputy United States Comptroller, who will be, as you remember,
the Chairman of the Board of Control, and President of the Bankers'
Council. In principle and in function this organization is identical
with that of the Bank of the State of Indiana, and of the State Bank of
Iowa, in which you will remember the parent, or home institution, did
no business whatever, except for the branches, which it examined and
supervised.
_Third_: You will note that in the matter of issuing currency, it
follows the principle of bank credit currency in operation today in
Canada, with the added power, subject to the approval of the Board of
Control, of doubling the issue to meet unusual demands of trade or in
case of an emergency.
_Fourth_: You will observe that we have planned to reach ultimately a
system of reserves consisting of gold, exclusively, and also to keep
all bank credits, both deposits and note issues, in constant touch with
gold by paying gold whenever called for.
_Fifth_: That in the matter of a strong central gold reserve, you will
observe that the plan follows the principle in force at the Bank of
England where all transactions are in gold, making England the only
truly free market for gold in the world.
Gentlemen, I am convinced that it is the natural right and present
opportunity of the United States to become the financial centre of
the world; but no country can ever become the financial centre of the
world, unless it is a free market for gold. No country can be a free
market for gold, unless its entire credit system is based upon gold,
and gold alone, thereby guaranteeing unquestioned bills of exchange.
Such bills would draw a rate as low as the lowest because protected
by a gold fund of such magnitude, when considered from the standpoint
of its obligations to the commerce of the country, where held, all
conditions being considered, as to insure beyond question its ability
to take and give gold, as necessity requires in international trade,
without endangering its stability, or affecting its credit.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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