The wealth of the nation has been, and is now being, concentrated in the hands of a few. Individuals have been, and are now, accumulating such vast fortunes that our President has advocated a course that amounts to confiscation, as the only remedy for the evil.
The money market can be so manipulated by a few men, that they are able, at pleasure, to make or unmake panics; to stagnate business; to appreciate or depreciate the value of stocks and bonds, and to cause untold suffering to the people. Innocent investors are carried from their feet by the maelstrom of speculation in money.
No great enterprise, be it for the public good or not, can be accomplished without first obtaining the consent of a few men who control the money market. A few millions of actual investment in Railroad stock, it has been demonstrated, can be manipulated so as to control stacks of railroads amounting to over a billion dollars; when the maturing crop of the farmer is ready for the market, the volume of currency in circulation is not great enough to move the crop to market, and the men in power reap large profits out of the money furnished for this purpose. A panic follows and the farmer is made to suffer and either hold his grain or sell it on a declining market.
The control of this greatest of all powers on earth should be taken from the hands of the few and deposited where it belongs, viz., into the hands of the Government. When this shall have been done all the ills which flow from this source will be healed.
It has been well said by the immortal Lincoln that this is a government of the people, by the people and for the people; and yet, we find that the place where there is the most need of governing the people for the greatest benefit of the whole people has been neglected.
Money is the controlling factor of all human agencies. Regulate it, and a proper regulation of most great evils will naturally follow.
Money is controlled by the banker, not because he owns all the money which he controls; but because the masses of the people deposit their money with him and thus he gains power over not only the little capital which he invests in the stock of the bank, but over the very large volume of deposits which his many customers leave with him.
The great power of the banker is a power placed in his hands by the people. The money which really gives him power is not his own, but belongs to the depositor.
If this great power were given by the people to our Government, it would be more impartially exerted, because the Government is the people. The people would thus be protected from loss of deposits by failing banks, absconding bankers and rascally bank officials. Combinations of the people’s money in the hands of a few men, to benefit the few men at the expense of the people would cease.
When a condition exists that is a menace to the people, a condition that is being taken advantage of by certain individuals to the detriment of the great mass of people, it is the right and the duty of the Government to enact such laws as will eradicate the nuisance if it can be done.