If, over at my bank, we are compelled to furnish an average of $10,000 in currency a week, our average expense for the year will undoubtedly be $10,000 invested for that purpose. And if money is worth 6 per cent interest, it will cost us $600 to supply that amount of currency. If we can buy United States Notes as cheap as any other kind of currency, and we should carry them in stock, they will cost us $600 per annum. Now, our bank, being a country bank, we carry 15 per cent of all our deposits to meet current demands. Is it not a perfectly simple and self-evident fact that if instead of being compelled to buy this $10,000 of United States Notes every week, and so keep $10,000 invested all the year around at a cost to us of $600, the interest on $10,000, we could convert $10,000 of our deposit debts into $10,000 note debts of the bank it would only cost us 6 per cent on $1,500, the amount we are carrying as reserve against our deposits of $10,000, or only $90. In other words, we would save $510 on the transaction. Of course, if we have to pay out $510 more in the one way than in the other, we will have to get it back from Mr. Merchant here, Mr. Manufacturer, Mr. Lawyer, Mr. Farmer and Mr. Laboringman; and if we should collect it from Mr. Merchant and Mr. Lawyer, they will in turn take it out of Mr. Farmer and Mr. Laboringman. MR. FARMER: You bet they will. We always get the gaff in the end. MR. LABORINGMAN: Where do I come in? I don't come in anywhere except to carry the load, as usual. I come out at the little end of the horn, as always heretofore. UNCLE SAM: Well, fellows, you see, don't you, that everything gets back, sooner or later, to the producer? He carries the load. MR. MERCHANT: But we carry the worry. MR. BANKER: I wish you did. You would have an easy time then, but-- MR. LABORINGMAN: You needn't say "but" to me. You have it on all of us. There is no doubt about that. However, Mr. Banker, I'm not going back on you, for you have helped me out of several tight pinches. UNCLE SAM: Well, it does really look to me as if I had been living in a fool's paradise. Those dear old greenbacks they have been about as much of a fraud as the dollar of our daddies. I do declare this whole thing makes me half sick. But if you are actually finding out what really ails me, I'll get over that pretty soon, and, boys, if we stick to this job, and play fair and honest, we'll have the best banking system in the world yet, and don't you forget it. But you forgot to tell me about the safest and best banking system in the world because every bank note was secured by one of my Government bonds. That's what they've been telling me, you know. Now, what about that?