However, if there are bankers, who by running double-headed or triple-headed institutions believe that they cannot then do some things that they are now doing, and which they, therefore, probably should not do, should undertake to argue that banking cannot be brought under national supervision and control, let them consider the following facts:
First: That the United States Government put a tax of 10 per cent upon all State bank notes and that they died a natural death. Of course, it is true they were suffocated. But would any one go back to the days when they had to pay exchange upon a bank note every time they crossed a State line? Would anybody take a step that would substitute a local currency for a national currency of uniform character and quality? Let every antagonist mark this, and remember it well that the same power that put a tax of 10 per cent upon bank note issues can also put a tax of 10 per cent upon deposits for any one of a number of good reasons; for example, it could and should impose such a tax, if necessary, to compel all the banks of the country to carry their part of the commercial burden in the shape of equal and adequate reserve.
Second: Can any one give a single reason, valid reason, why the postal savings bank was made a national institution that would not apply with equal, if not greater, force to the $17,000,000,000 individual deposits of which $6,480,000,000 are savings?
Third: Can any one deny that it is interstate commerce for note brokers to ship millions, yes billions upon billions, of promissory notes, or so-called commercial paper, from one State to another by express, mail or freight? Will any one deny that promissory notes are property? Will any one assert that shipping promissory notes differs in the slightest degree from shipping eggs, apples, potatoes, cotton, grain or live stock on the ground that promissory notes are not property, but that eggs, apples, potatoes, cotton, grain and live stock are property?
Will any one deny that the same power that passed the "food and drugs act," giving the Government power to stop the use of poisons in medicines and food; the "insecticide act," giving the Government power to prescribe the character of poison to be used to kill bad bugs; the "plant quarantine act," giving the Government the right to stop lice from traveling across a State line; the "meat inspection act," giving the Government power to insist upon decent meat; the "live stock quarantine act," giving the Government the right to prevent a man from driving his cattle under certain conditions over a State line; the "twenty-eight hour law," requiring shippers to treat cattle humanely; the "employers' liability act," the "safety appliance act," the "white slave act," the "hours of service act," the act regulating the transportation of explosives; will any one deny, I say, that the same power that passed all these acts cannot be exercised to protect forty-seven States in the Union against such bank practices in the forty-eighth State, as will at any moment throw the entire country into a panic and destroy all public confidence in our banks and bring in its wake the destruction of credit and consequently the destruction of vast property values?
Certainly no one will deny that any State has the power, and that it is its duty to compel every person, firm or corporation using the word "banker" or "bank" to submit themselves to jurisdiction, supervision and control of that State. Every State has the power to protect any of its citizens against the wrongdoings of other citizens, and one bank or banker against the evil practices of other banks or bankers.
In eighteen States no bank reserves are now required by law, and in many States there is no supervision whatever of State banking institutions by the State. Is it possible that the National Government has no power to act in the light of these facts when the banking business of the country is essentially not only one kind of a business, but, indeed, one single business, each one being a wheel in the great credit machine?
It is so interlaced, and so interwoven that one rotten spot map prove as dangerous to the whole fabric of credit as a box of dynamite under one's chair. Is it possible, I say, in the light of all these facts, that there is no redress, no protection to our vast commerce, and to labor through the National Government? Is it possible that we could be compelled to continue for a thousand years in the midst of our present terrors from bad supervision and want of adequate reserves?
The manufacturers, the merchants, the farmers, the laboring men, and business interests of every kind have a right to demand and undoubtedly will demand protection, and demand it now. Unless I misunderstand the present temper of the American people, they will now demand that their interests be safeguarded, and that they be protected against the always impending dangers growing out of the present conglomerate condition of the banking business.