Mr. Lawyer: Then, as I understand it, beyond the individual independent bank, and beyond and behind the individual independent zone, would be "The American Reserve Bank," standing guard over the commercial interests of the whole United States, ready at any time to meet any possible contingency that might arise in any section of the country, with practically unlimited power to release, hold, or recall gold from the four quarters of the globe, because it can place a price upon the use of gold in the form of interest, and so conserve the general welfare of American commerce and American labor.
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.
This result can only be achieved by enforcing the discount rate throughout the country involved; and the discount rate can only be enforced throughout the country involved by buying and selling bills of exchange in straight gold transactions. We should not trade one bank credit for another bank credit, and put this bank credit into our bank reserves, as the Aldrich scheme proposed, thereby driving gold out of the banks, and out of the country, and also utterly destroying our power to control and protect the cash gold reserves of our banks, which outside of what may be called subsidiary money (from $2 pieces down), should ultimately and always be gold and gold alone.
In conclusion, I submit that the whole plan as we've worked it out does not introduce a single foreign element but creates out of our own practices, which have developed out of our own peculiar conditions, a financial and banking system, founded upon sound economic principles. It gradually eliminates those errors that have crept into our financial and banking practices, possibly through supposed necessity, but certainly through ignorance; and yet, the present incoherent conglomerate condition is brought to a simplicity and strength that may safely challenge any country in the world to institute a comparison for economy, efficiency, strength and safety.