Is it right?
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According to the official statement for Nov. 12th, 1906, THE GOVERNMENT has now increased its loans to the National Banks to the stupendous TOTAL of $147,000,000.
Never before has the gratuitous loan been so large. Who can defend such a policy? Who would not BE ASHAMED to appear before an audience of intelligent voters to advocate the wisdom and the propriety of such GOVERNMENTAL FAVORITISM as this?
You laughed at the Farmers’ Alliance when it favored government loans to the people, on the best of security, at two per cent interest. Yet you say nothing against government loans to a few pet National Banks FREE OF INTEREST, and upon DOUBTFUL SECURITY.
Part of that LOAN OF ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY-SEVEN MILLIONS is secured by Chicago Municipal Bonds, called, I believe, the Sanitary Bonds. Would you not prefer to lend YOUR Money upon a good farm, or upon warehouse certificates for cotton?
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The farmers would be only too glad to pay the Government FOUR PER CENT for that money which THE PET BANKS GET FOR NOTHING. Four per cent interest upon one hundred and forty-seven million dollars is a tidy sum. Figure it out and you will see, that it is about SIX MILLION DOLLARS. That’s a neat sum to be GIVEN AWAY EVERY YEAR, isn’t it?
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Consider this also: You, the Common People, are the taxpayers who put that money into the U. S. Treasury. The pet National Banks pay, practically, none of it.